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When Gandhi visited Madras

Sunday, Jan 26,

2003

Gandhi, along with his wife, Kasturba, was in Chennai in

1915. It was at this time that a correspondence began
between V.O. Chidambaram Pillai and Gandhi which
continued for about six months. VOC seems to have
preserved the letters, which A.R.
VENKATACHALAPATHY sheds light on.

A.R. VENKATACHALAPATHY

In Chennai _ (sitting) Gandhi with Kasturba. Behind her

is G.A. Natesan.
BETWEEN the middle of 1915 and early 1916, Gandhi
exchanged a series of letters with a personality whose name
does not occur even once in the 100-volume Collected
Works of Mahatma Gandhi. The person in question is V.O.
Chidambaram Pillai (or VOC), who between 1906-08 during
the Swadeshi movement, dominated the national movement
in Tamil Nadu.
Gandhi was not yet the Mahatma then . Fresh from decades long political activity in South Africa , Gandhi was still finding
his feet , politically. He had arrived in Chennai on April 17,

1915, along with his wife , Kasturba. The couple stayed at 60,
Thambu Chetty Street (George Town), the residence of G .A.
Natesan, the nationalist publisher . He was to stay in Chennai
(Madras) for three weeks before setting out for Ahmedabad
on May 8.
V.O. Chidambaram Pillai , born in Ottappidaram , now in
Tuticorin district , in 1872 was about three years younger to
Gandhi. Unlike Gandhi, he was neither a barrister nor did he
acquire a degree , just passing a second grade pleadership
examination in 1894, after completing school , which enabled
him to practise at the local sub -magistrate's court. However,
he soon moved to practise at Tuticorin , the port town nearby .
He evinced interest in Saiva Siddhanta , taking part in the
local Saivite association and pursuing his literary and
religious interests . But with 1906, "The New Spirit " that was
the outcome of the Swadeshi movement, everything changed.
The year and a half that followed radically changed his
life,
propelling him to brief all -India fame and immortality in the
Tamil world.
Flourishing commerce between Tuticorin and Colombo was
the monopoly of the British India Steam Navigation Company
(BISN) and its Tuticorin agents , A. & F. Harvey. Inspired by
Swadeshi ideals , V.O.C. garnered the support of local
merchants, and launched the first indigenous Indian shipping
enterprise, the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company , thus
earning for himself the sobriquet , "Kappalottiya Tamilan (The
Tamil who launched ships "). The fledgling company soon
made it clear that it was up against
the very might of the
colonial Indian state . VOC's pioneering attempt was lauded
across the sub -continent and he went on to purchase two
steamships, S.S. Gallia and S.S. Lawoe for the company.
His efforts to widen the base of the Swadeshi movement , by
mobilising the workers of the Coral Mills , also managed by A.
& F. Harvey, accentuated the contradiction . In the nationalist
movement, he backed Bal Gangadhar Tilak , leading a
contingent (which included the poet Subramania Bharati) from
the Madras Presidency to the Surat Congress (1907) where
the Congress had split into two camps
the extremists and
the moderates. By the time he returned , he had become the
most popular leader of the extremists in South India
galvanising the Swadeshi shipping company , organising the
mill workers to strike and conducting a series of nationalist
meetings in Tuticorin and Tirunelveli.
On March 12, 1908, he was arrested on charges of sedition

and for two days

, Tirunelveli and Tuticorin witnessed
unprecedented violence , quelled only by the stationing of a
punitive police force.
But newspapers had taken note of VOC.
Aurobindo Ghosh , editorialising him in his Bande Ma a am
(March 27, 1908), with "Well Done , Chidambaram", went so
far as to call the dark, short Dravidian, "the first example of an
Aryan reborn". Apart from the Madras press , even the Amrita
Bazaar Patrika from Kolkata (Calcutta) carried reports of his
prosecution every day. Funds were raised for his defence not
only in India but also by the Tamils in South Africa
. But the
draconian sentence of two life imprisonments (even Tilak got
only six years ) was received with shock and disbelief . After
the witch -hunt following Tirunelveli District Collector Ashe 's
assassination (in 1911) by youths patently inspired by VOC ,
the congenitally weak Swadeshi movement , with its limited
popular base, petered out.
VOC, languishing in prison , was left to fend for himself . His
young wife, Meenakshi Ammal followed him
almost singlehandedly organising the logistics of his appeals
from the
Tirunelveli sub jail to the Coimbatore and Kannur central jails ,
where he spent his
term. In those "pre-Non Cooperation
days", when there was no category of political prisoners , he
did hard (convict) labour. VOC was even made to work the oil
mill , depicted so poignantly in a poem by his friend
Subramania Bharati . In prison he continued a clandestine
correspondence, maintaining a stream of petitions going into
legal niceties and giving evidence against them in a jail
outbreak.
THE HINDU PHOTO LIBRARY

V.O. Chidambaram Pillai.

When he stepped out of prison in late December 1912, after
a high court appeal had reduced his prison sentence, the
huge crowds present on his arrest were conspicuously
absent. Probably externed from his native Tirunelveli district,
he moved to Chennai with his wife and two young sons.
Having been convicted for sedition, he had lost his
pleadership anad, thus depriving him of his livelihood. The
Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company had collapsed, having
been liquidated in 1911. His family had lost all its wealth and
property in his legal defence, the public subscriptions for his
defence fund being too paltry.

***
It was at this time that Gandhi arrived in Chennai
. A
correspondence which began at this juncture between VOC
and Gandhi continued for about six months
, which is our
present concern . We do not know what happened to the
enormous mail Gandhi received . But VOC seems to have
preserved all these letters, and for good measure , had written
his draft replies on Gandhi 's letters. So we have his side too .
The lines he had scribbled out in his draft letters add to our
knowledge
amply rewarding for the task of decipherment.
The first letter , drafted probably a day after Gandhi arrived ,
addressed Gandhi as "Dear Brother": "I have had the fortune
of seeing you and my respected Mrs Gandhi when you came
out of the Railway compound the other evening ", it said and
added, "I want to have a private interview with you at any time
convenient to you before you leave this place".
Gandhi replied promptly with a single line on April 20, 1915:
"If you kindly call at ... 6 A.M. next Friday, I could give you a
few minutes".
Switching over to a more formal "Dear Sir", VOC replied the
next day: Underlining the words "a few minutes", he said, "As I
am afraid that my conversation with you will take more than
the allotted `a few minutes ', I need not trouble you with my
presence". He excused himself "for having intruded upon your
precious time".
It was now Gandhi 's turn to take mild offence : " If you do not
want to see me I would like to see you myself . Will you kindly
call on Friday or Saturday at 6 A.M. and [sic?] give me a few
minutes?" He then went on to explain: "Of course you can call
any day between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. when I am open to be
seen by anybody . But as you wanted a private interview I
suggested Friday morning as I suggest some morning or the
other for private interviews". (April 21, 1915)
Here came the first poignant moment in the exchange . VOC
agreed to meet Gandhi early in the morning but said, "I cannot
reach your place before 6:30 a.m."
Reason: " the tram car , the only vehicle by which I can now
afford to go to your place , leaves Mylapore after 5:30 in the
morning". A man who had bought up two steamships a few
years earlier was now unable to take anything more than a
tram! Yet VOC went on to add , "I can spend not `a few
minutes' but, the whole of my lifetime with the patriots of my

country if they wish me to do so. All my time is intended for the

services of my country and of its patriots. Only after these two ,
God is attended to by me".
***
Gandhi and VOC did indeed meet . But whether VOC took
only a tram or whether they met only for "a few minutes " we
will never know. But the correspondence did not end here . It
followed the issue Gandhi himself raised in his letter of April
21, 1915.
I would like to know from you whether you received some
moneys from me which were collected on your behalf some
years ago in South Africa . I was trying to trace some orders
which I had thought were sent , but I did not find them
. I
therefore would like to know from you whether you received
the moneys that were handed to me.
VOC replied (April 22, 1915) that neither he nor his wife had
received any money . The reference to his wife and the
indication by Gandhi to money collected "some years ago "
suggest that it may have had to do with the fund raised in
South Africa for VOC 's defence . ( In two waves of migration
from India , 1860-1866 and 1874-1911, Tamils had reached
South Africa most often as indentured labourers
. Even in
1980, Tamils constituted 37 per cent of the population , the
largest group among people of Indian origin . ( A collection of
Bharati's poems , "Matha Manivachagam ", had been
published in Durban in 1914. Gandhi's links with this segment
of the diaspora needs no recounting .) However, despite his
impecunious situation, he reassured Gandhi : " But, if you will
pardon me, I will say that you need not trouble yourself ... for I
am sure that it would have gone to a better purpose".
Gandhi would of course have none of it . " I don 't know the
names of those who subscribed for you but the money was
given to me by a friend on their behalf and I have been always
under the impression that it was sent to you".
Now comes the most poignant letter. VOC replied saying that
he had presumed from Gandhi's earlier letter that the fund had
been spent towards Passive Resistance in South Africa and ,
therefore, he had asked him not to bother to remit the money
especially if it was to be from his funds . But now that Gandhi
had made it clear that it was not so:

Ahmedabad, Januar 15, 1916 _ Gandhi's letter to VOC,

whose draft repl is seen below Gandhi's signature.
"I will, in my present condition, be only glad to receive that
money ... I have already told you in person that my family and I
are supported for the past two years or so by some South
African Indians ... Such being the case, there is no reason why
I should say that the money intended for me and that is ready
to be given to me is not wanted by me. Under the present
circumstances if I refuse that amount I will be committing a
wrong to myself and my family".
Now that the issue was settled
that Gandhi indeed owed
money, and VOC was not averse to receiving it
a series of

letters were exchanged from late May

1915 until January
1916. To VOC 's apparently long letters , Gandhi replied on
cryptic post cards.
On May 28, 1915 Gandhi assured VOC : "I shall now send for
the book subscribed in Natal. I don't know the amount nor the
names. But I hope to get them ". VOC seems to have been in
desperate need of money
. " Don't you know at least
approximately the total amount given to you by your friend ? If
you know it , can you not send me that amount or a major
portion of it now, so that it may be useful to me in my present
difficult circumstances ? The remainder you may send to me
after you get the books ", VOC pleaded (May 31, 1915). He
also asked for the names of benefactors . In letter after letter
he asked for these details.
It is understandable , given VOC's penchant for remembering
benefactors by naming his children for them : Vedavalli was
named for T . Vedia Pillai who supported him and
Subramaniam for C.K. Subramania Mudaliar, who helped him
during his prosecution . Even the Englishman E .H. Wallace,
who first committed his case to the session 's court but was
instrumental in getting his anad back , was remembered in
the name of his last son, Wallacewaran!
But Gandhi would only say , "If you will kindly wait a while , you
will have both the money and the particulars
. If I knew the
name of the friend, I should certainly let you know ", and asked
VOC to write to Mr. Patak at Johannesburg for more details.

Probably to another reminder from VOC, asking if he had

heard from South Africa,
Gandhi wrote a rather curt
"Not yet , yours M .K. Gandhi"
without even a formal word of address (July 23, 1915). But
within a month, most certainly to another reminder from VOC ,
Gandhi wrote with his own hand , in Tamil, saying he had not
yet heard from South Africa . ( This particular post card is in
tatters.)
Gandhi writing in Tamil seems to have completely floored
VOC. Dropping the question of money VOC started off right
away, "Your card written in Tamil reached me on the due date.
I am glad to see that you have written the language without
any mistake whatever. If you are able to read and understand
Tamil prose and poetical works of ordinary style, I will be glad
to send you all my publications" (September 28, 1915).

However, even in December 1915 and January 1916, Gandhi

was only writing one -line letters like "I am still awaiting
instructions from Natal" to VOC's increasingly desperate and
beseeching letters.
VOC's ordeal came to an end at last when , on January 20,
1916, Gandhi wrote from Ahmedabad , "I have now heard
from Natal", and that Rs . 347-12-0 was to be remitted to him
soon.
The correspondence ends here . VOC was no doubt relieved
and delighted. On February 4, 1916, he wrote to a friend , in
Tamil, "Rs. 347-12-0 has come from Sriman Gandhi . I have
given Rs. 100 to the pressman for casting new types. With the
remaining money I have settled all my debts except one of
Rs.50. I will need further money only to buy paper".
Of course, VOC had heaved a sigh of relief too early . Never
really recovering from the penury caused by his prison life
he tried his hand at selling provisions , worked as a clerk in
Coimbatore and for a few years after regaining his
pleadership anad, practised in the Kovilpatti court which by
his own admission was only enough to meet his "betel leaves
and areca nut expenses". This however did not come much in
the way of his public life . As a die -hard supporter of Tilak , he
could never countenance Gandhi 's leadership . Yet, until his
death in 1936, he continued to be active in the labour
movement, the national movement and the non brahmin
movement. That, however, is a different story.