Interesting to imagine how R. Sankar would have reacted to SNDP's present strategy of aligning with Sangh Parivar interests. I do not see any formal direct link by SNDP, the social organization, with any Sangh Parivar organization on the cards. However, Bharat Dharma Jana Sena may clearly enter into an understanding with parties which would accept it, including the Kerala BJP. I also speculate that the SNDP may permit its office-bearers and members to contest elections as members of BDJS. We need not concern much with the fate of SNDP's electoral foray as it will be a result of the acceptability of their programme, the strategy they adopt and the success of their tactics in pooling together their support base.
I think R.Sankar's possible reaction to this development would have been one of broad welcome in the light of his history of experiment with broad Hindu unity during his Democratic Congress days between 1948 and 1952. During those days of Travancore politics, Sankar and Mannathu Padmanabhan had attempted broad reformation of Hindu temple management and abolition of the caste system through their activities in Hindu Mahamandalam and activities of first Devaswom Board, formed in 1949, in which R.Sankar, Mannathu Padmanabhan and R.Sankaranarayana Iyer were members.
Sankaranarayana Iyer remembers that activities of the first Devaswom Board included classes on Hindu religion, Vedic education, improvement of Vedic education centres and Tantric education. The Board even allocated Rs 1 lakh in 1949 to the improvement of a Vedic College. In summary, these activities of Mannam and Sankar were so severely criticised in the Travancore State Congress of 26 November 1949 to the extent of prohibiting Congress members from participating in SNDP, NSS, Catholic Congress and the Muslim League, whom the meeting called "communal outfits". The meeting also condemned Mannam and Sankar for their "communal campaign". Subsequently Mannam and Sankar lost their Devaswom Board membership to a new legislation brought forward by the State Congress. Besides these, the 1950 annual meeting of SNDP even resolved to join the Hindu Mahamandalam along with NSS and transfer its assets to the new organization. The then NSS president, Govinda Menon, was made a member of the SNDP Yogam Board also.
In 1949, a leaflet published by R.Sankar, which is available in Archives, identifies the excessive clout of Christian leadership in the State Congress and says that he is attempting to neutralise it. It is also part of history that in 1952 the State Congress managed to appease Sankar back into its fold and the Hindu unification plank of Sankar died a slow natural death. When we consider how he lost his Chief Ministership in 1964 one cannot say that the assessment of Sankar was completely baseless. With the benefit of this history I would rather say R.Sankar would have been very curious of the approach now being adopted by his successors in SNDP as a strategy.
One should always keep in mind that R.Sankar was a complex multifaceted political personality, who served different interests during his long political career which was by and large with Congress on a secular platform. But one can clearly see interludes where he experimented with Hindu unity in the State. Therefore, I would cross my fingers on whether Sankar would have totally disapproved of the current initiative of SNDP totally, given the reality it seeks to address. Politics is not statistics because perception drives the data and results. All political development is the surface of a broad brand of discontent of a kind developing in society. It is more important to sense that development than find fault with the surface phenomenon.
- Dr.B. Ashok (Author is Vice-Chancellor, University of Veterinary Sciences)
R. Sankar occupied a unique position in Kerala's sociopolitical sphere during the fifties and sixties. He enjoyed the confidence of a good segment of the Ezhava community and other OBC segments as well. He had the enviable stature of an astute politician, uncorrupt and dedicated to public cause, an able and efficient administrator, and a leader with a tremendous mass base. His approach and outlook in evolving developmental policies were always pro-poor, as some of his laudable decisions in implementing various ameliorative pension schemes and other pro-people steps aimed at uplifting the socially and economically weaker sections show.
It was during his time that the government framed rules for the distribution of government land, making specific provision for earmarking a fixed percentage of it assigned in every village for the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe segments, a rule which appears to have been respected more in violation than in compliance by successive administrations.
It should be in the above perspective that we must attempt at answering the hypothetical question as to whether R Sankar if he were alive would have lauded the present effort of Vellappally to jump on to the bandwagon of forces sporting virulent hindutva agendas.
The first thought that strikes one's mind is that with the presence of a towering leader from the backward segment, enjoying the confidence of a large chunk of the depressed classes and respect from other segments for his erudite, cultured and uncorrupt public image, the Congress party would not have been the target of the widespread criticism that it has turned into a den of Christian domination over the decades which was the provocation for floating the Hindu Mandalam. The Congress party would have been able to maintain and protect a more balanced facade, with the backward segments enjoying an adequate representation at the organizational and parliamentary levels.
Apart from the above, the point of debate is whether R. Sankar would have sided with the RSS-BJP combine of the present times, viewing in retrospect his onetime association with the NSS and Mannathu Padmanabhan for floating the Hindu Mahamandalam. True it is that he had even persuaded the Board of Directors of SNDP Yogam to pass the resolution enabling the merger of the assets of the SNDP Yogam and NSS leaders had taken the public vow to abandon the caste suffix of their names, and many had cast away the suffix like, Nair, Pilla etc... All said, one has to take note of the totally different situations prevalent now. Joining hands with NSS and attempting to create a common platform for emancipation of the Hindu segments of the fifties bears no comparison with the move of Vellappally to jump on to the Hindutva bandwagon of the present times. R. Sankar having assimilated the fragrance of the secular slogans of Sree Narayana Guru wouldn't have thought of aligning with the strident Hindutva slogans of the present day RSS-BJP combine or the Sangh-Parivar.
It may not be amiss to take note of the course of events after the slow death of Hindu Mahamandalam. R. Sankar had stood steadfast with the Congress, and never forayed into the Janasangh politics despite his long political career after the disbanding of the Mandalam. If at all R. Sankar had occasion to be disgruntled with the Congress politics of the present times on account of being too minority-centric, he would rather have chosen to break a new path channelising the marginalised backward downtrodden segments politically onto a secular plane in his strife for social justice, rather than swim with the currents being triggered by hardcore Hindutva forces, labouring under the severe criticism of being the fulcrum of the rightist forces in present day India.
C. K Vidyasagar (Author is former president of SNDP Yogam)
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