'Delhi has never been able to control the South' Historian Rajmohan Gandhi discusses his book Modern South India with Outlook Bibliofile
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00:00 Many people in Delhi have tried over the centuries to reach Cape Comer and Kanyakumari and rule
00:07 all those areas directly and most of the time they have failed.
00:12 Hello and welcome to Bibliophile, Outlook's new channel on books, authors, publishers,
00:25 anything from the literary world. And today we are discussing a new book by Rajmohan Gandhi,
00:31 Modern South India and what better place to discuss this than the Delhi Tamil Education
00:36 Association, one of the most premium institutions, South Indian institutions in the capital.
00:41 Thank you very much for coming, agreeing to come to Bibliophile. It's an honour to have
00:45 you on the show. And you know, as I was just saying, it's, you know, it's a, though it's
00:52 a sort of a historian's account of South India, it is also such a fascinating read. I mean,
00:58 the descriptions, the nuances that you bring in, it's so riveting. So what kind of, did
01:05 you do a lot of research, you going to the places and seeing how things were?
01:10 Well, thank you for your kind words. You know, if it is as you say, then I'm lucky because
01:14 it's very difficult to know when one is writing, how it's going to turn out. Yes, I went to
01:19 all, to many of these places and I of course did a lot of research in libraries and archives,
01:26 but also made visits to as many places as I could in South India. And I also tapped
01:33 the knowledge of many historians that they had accumulated over the decades to save some
01:39 time for myself. My plan was not to discover some kind of new archaeological material,
01:47 some new discovery about the past. No, my aim was to try to recapture the past to the
01:52 extent possible. So I went to some scholars who had done their study. So many very fine
01:57 historians were kind enough to share their insights with me.
02:01 As one goes through the book, it's one striking feature is in fact from the last 400 years
02:09 at least, you know, Delhi has never been able to have its hold on South India, right from
02:14 Akbar's time in the mid 1600s centuries to the present. Is distance an issue or is it
02:21 a cultural distance or is it a physical distance?
02:25 This is a very important point you make that many people in Delhi have tried over the centuries
02:32 to reach Cape Comer and Kanyakumari and rule all those areas directly and most of the time
02:41 they have failed. It has to do with distance, it has to do with culture, it has to do with
02:47 the fact that invading forces when they've gone south, they are stretched, their resources
02:55 are stretched. By the time they reach the south, they're too weak to impose their authority.
03:00 But that I'm talking about the earlier period. But at the present time, in more recent time,
03:05 there's a very great cultural divide. The south is a distinct entity and so it has resisted
03:13 that kind of governance.
03:17 And the other thing you pointed out in the book is how the invasions have, you know,
03:22 the attempts have been actually from north to the south onward, never from south up north.
03:27 Right.
03:28 Why is that?
03:31 You know, because Delhi was for centuries the capital, so all the forces and assets
03:39 were amassed in the Delhi area. Nonetheless, it's a great question that the south should
03:46 ask itself. Why have we not tried in the south to take leadership of India as a whole, not
03:54 necessarily to conquer and dominate, but to lead India? So this is one of the recurring
04:03 themes in my study is the reluctance of many in the south to dare to assume leadership
04:11 for the country as a whole.
04:13 And that seems to continue even in our democratic times.
04:16 Yes.
04:17 Even in the post-independence, there doesn't seem to be, I mean, a single person with that
04:21 ambition of at least getting the southern states together.
04:24 Yes. So, I say two people who came closest to assuming all India leadership. Of course,
04:30 there was Narsimha Rao was Prime Minister, Devagardha was Prime Minister, but those were,
04:36 you might say, results of accidents, political circumstances.
04:40 Yes.
04:41 It isn't as if Narsimha Rao from early years tried to become the leader of India.
04:45 Yes.
04:46 He was glad he became Prime Minister and Devagardha was also very fortunate to become
04:51 Prime Minister.
04:52 But the two people who came closest were Rajaji and Kamaraj.
04:56 Yes.
04:57 Rajaji was Governor General. He was in the center, very close to Nehru and Patel in the
05:02 government. Kamaraj was the President of the Congress. When Nehru died, he made possible
05:10 the emergence of Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister and again Shastri.
05:14 But neither Rajaji nor Kamaraj really tried to take advantage of the opportunities they
05:19 had to assert some kind of national leadership themselves. They were glad to play the role
05:25 they played and then they returned, you might say, to the shadows.
05:28 Yes.
05:29 So, they didn't want to stay and govern India quite.
05:32 The other point, sir, this is of course about how southern leaders have not shown this ambition
05:39 to lead the country. The other thought that many people have entertained, especially during
05:45 Periyar's time in the 1930s, of this Dravidian nation, of these southern states having their
05:53 own, what would it be, in a counterfactual manner, what would it be like if there was
06:00 a country of southern states?
06:03 Yes, for some time, mind you, Periyar also didn't pursue that dream till the end of his life.
06:10 He passionately worked for it. He had this notion of the Dravidian lands. It is true
06:18 that all the four major southern languages ultimately have their root in Dravidian linguistics.
06:25 But, and of course, one point that I have made, which is an obvious one, a physical
06:35 one, that whereas the north is dominated by the Himalayas, the south is dominated by the
06:40 oceans, which brings international connections to the south. Kerala has had connections with
06:46 the Middle East and Tamil Nadu also, Andhra. But although there has been this distinct
06:55 southern tradition and culture, it is also a fact that these southern regions, different
07:02 ones, have had difficulty really making alliances with one another. And after the linguistic
07:09 distribution in 1956, when the maps were changed, across the new boundary were seen not southern
07:17 neighbours, but possible enemies or rivals, at times enemies. So this has been an unfortunate
07:24 reality. And even during Periyar's time, it was not easy for him, he was not successful
07:31 in persuading the Telugu speakers and the Kannada speakers and the Malayalam speakers
07:35 that they would have equal rights in a southern state. There was a suggestion that possibly
07:40 the Tamil area might dominate the others. So that was also a factor. But granting all
07:49 these difficulties and the failures, you might say, I would say that the basic unity of the
07:57 south is still to be explored and it can be made use of. Not, of course, for a separate
08:03 country, but for a very important block of states who could then play a large part in
08:08 India as a whole. As a united entity. Yes. Our electoral process itself, you know, the
08:14 states which have the best human indices, you know, even the GDP, state GDP, how come
08:22 that it is the northern states, you know, which in the end decide sort of who takes
08:28 the chair in Delhi. Would you say it's a flaw in our electoral process? I don't know whether
08:35 we should call it a flaw in the process, but it is a result of demographics. I mean, A,
08:41 it's a result of the fact that the Hindi speakers are a very substantial percentage of the Indian
08:46 population. And secondly, the southern states have not been able to form a united block.
08:54 If they were to form a united block, they would have a much greater weight in the centre.
09:00 Of course, they would have to have partnerships with the western India, eastern India, but
09:06 I think it's partly demographics, it's partly, you might say, tradition. You know, people
09:12 get accustomed to certain things. Yes. And so, but ultimately the Hindi speaking states
09:22 have a great many MPs in Parliament. The southern states don't have as many.
09:28 Yeah, you know, like say one state like Uttar Pradesh should decide in their final. Is that, I meanâŠ
09:35 So, you know, when you agree on one person, one vote, that is where now the idea was that
09:42 the, you know, Rajya Sabha would be a council of the states. But even the Rajya Sabha is
09:50 ultimately decided on the basis of population. And in fact, if southern states are able to
09:55 control their population, they may lose their ratio in Lok Sabha in the future.
10:02 So, merely to let population be a determining factor, I think we should give some fresh thought to that.
10:09 And increase the federal character of the Rajya Sabha. Yes. And fight for the federal spirit to be maintained.
10:19 I think that is the absolute case. The south has shown so much progress also, even post-independence.
10:25 In education, in health, and population and family planning, and in economics and GDP.
10:34 So, the south has credentials for leadership. But I will, maybe you will allow me to make a point.
10:45 This book is not written to establish an argument or to say that the south must haveâŠ
10:52 Sure. That is a fact. And that comes across. But my main bid in my research and in my writing
11:00 was to see if I could discover what the 17th century was like, what the 18th century was like,
11:07 in South India, what the 19th century was like, in all parts of South India, what the 20th century was like.
11:12 So, you know, I was moving forward in time from the 17th century, but I was moving sideways in space.
11:19 I was moving to Kerala, to Karnataka, to Telugu, to the Tamil area. So, I wanted to cover all those areas
11:26 and try to capture as faithfully as I could, what the spirit of the period was, what the texture of that period was.
11:34 Of course, so many precious things are not included in this. How can one book covering 400 years,
11:44 in these numerous rich cultures, cover everything? Not possible.
11:49 Sir, I am tempted to ask just one last question. You know, since your grandparents are Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and C. Rajagopalachari,
11:58 you are more Gujarati or more South Indian? Well, I suppose, I have spent, relatively speaking,
12:06 far more time in the South than in Gujarat. For one thing, Rajaji lived to a ripe age and I was 37 when he died.
12:16 I was 12 and a half when Gandhiji was assassinated. So, I was able to have prolonged conversations with C.R. Rajaji,
12:25 which I could not have had with you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Rajagopalachari.
12:30 Mohan Gandhi, it was a delight to speak to you. Thank you.
12:33 The book is a really, really fascinating account of the South India in the last 400 years.
12:36 Thank you for giving me the chance to talk about it. Thank you, sir.
12:39 [Music]