Editor’s Note
SANT NIHAL SINGH was one of a kind. Born into relative affluence in Rawalpindi in 1884, he went on to become an itinerant journalist and writer, travelled the world and produced a staggering body of work. In the West especially, his name was taken with a mixture of respect and detraction, especially by sections of the racist media. In Canada mostly, he became the Number One champion of Hindu and Sikh immigrants – he didn’t make that distinction though. His serialised essays on his experiences in Japan are still required reading for students who wish to learn how this tiny country combatted the virus of Christian missionary activity.
Writing under the byline, St Nihal Singh, he was among the handful of courageous patriots who advocated the Indian freedom movement on foreign soil along with kindred spirits like Lala Har Dayal. He was a permanent fixture on both foreign and Indian newspapers and periodicals such as The Province, Review of Reviews, The New York Times and the Calcutta-based Modern Review. His gamut of contacts included Maharajas, Begums, freedom fighters, industrialists, lawyers, activists, saints and sadhus.
One such Sadhu was the legendary Swami Shraddhananda. In the March 1945 issue of the Modern Review, St Nihal Singh began a multipart profile of the Swami, whom he had known since his childhood. Apart from the tangible reverence for the Swami, the essay is relevant to our own times from multiple perspectives, which will become clear as you read it.
St Nihal Singh knew Swami Shraddhananda from the days when he was only known as Munshi Ram – a notorious “drunkard” and profligate “meat-eater.”
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Go ahead, read the whole thing! In St Nihal Singh's own words.
A Revivalist
I received, the other day, a letter that had been written by a man I greatly esteem. The house in Lahore from which he sent it is in Rattigan Road.
The sight of that street’s name awakened memories that were imprinted upon my mind when it had hardly been formed. “Ratee-geen,” as I called the lawyer it honours, then was much mouthed by the youngsters of that day—say 55 years ago. One fellow, questioning the wisdom of another, would mockingly shout:
“Have you set yourself up as a Ratee-geen?”
This paragon of wisdom was an English barrister—Mr. (later Sir William) Rattigan. Briefs came to him unsought: they were, in some cases, actually thrust upon him. His was the most lucrative practice in the capital of the Punjab—or so, at least, it was reputed to be.
Whether he was supremely sagacious or not, I cannot say at this date. This much, however, is certain: he was worldly wise. Being such, he was in the good books of the provincial government. The Lieutenant-Governor (as the member of the Indian Civil Service who ran the administration without being burdened by any executive councillor or minister, was styled) had nominated him as the chairman of the council created to manage the Khalsa College. He was also appointed the Vice-Chancellor of the Punjab University. At some stage of his life that I cannot place with any precision he was knighted.
II
Three, or possibly only two years prior to the interment of the nineteenth century, my father said to me:
“You boys are constantly flinging ‘Ratee-geen’ at one another. A man is coming here tomorrow who, not long ago, defeated Mr. Rattigan. A smashing defeat it was, I should say.”
“Who is this defeater of Ratee-geen, Father?” I asked. “To have won a victory against Ratee-geen he must have been far, far wiser.”
“Whether he is far, far wiser, it is not for me to say,” Father replied. “He is, as I told you, coming here. Would you like to have a darshan of him? Would you like to meet him?”
With these words he stopped talking. My curiosity, therefore, had the opportunity to over-work itself. Cutting a stone, from the quarry of my fancy, I immediately started carving it with speed that no sculptor in any clime—in any age—has ever been able to approach, much less excel.
III
The hero in actual life failed, however, to bear any similitude to the demigod of my imagination. I had given him the sort of features and figure that I then deemed as intellectual—a massive head, “arched forehead” (Father’s phrase), short-sighted eyes with spectacles in front of them, a short, slight person with the stoop that I associated with scholarship.
He was, on the contrary, a mountain of a man. Tall and broad-shouldered, he stood erect like the hauldar (Punjabi for havildar—a corporal) who drilled me in the school ground. He strode along and talked loudly, even for a Punjabi.
He must be a Jut, I said to myself. In those days we of the Khatri (Kshatriya, martial) castes used that term for a yokel, whether he was a Jut by social sub-division or not. Women, men and boys went about shouting: Jut ke yaan longan da bha—how can a Jut (clod of earth) know the rate at which cloves sell? I had no idea that I should live to see Juts spoken of as Jats; and the Jats in concert with Muslims, some descendants of Jat converts to that faith, would, in virtue of arrangements devised in London, be ruling the Punjab.
This man may, I thought, be a pahalwan (wrestler). He certainly would give a good account of himself in a wrestling match.
He would, however, it seemed to my callow mind, cut a sorry figure in a joust of wits. Had father been joking when he told me that this friend of his had bested the man who was regarded, at least by us youngsters, as the wisest person in the Punjab?
IV
No. That account proved to be true enough. The most eminent lawyer in the town—Hoshiarpur—who was my confidant, confirmed it.
There had been a legal battle, Lala Sham Das, the Government Advocate, said. On one side was engaged Mr. Rattigan. On the other appeared Lala Munshi Ram (the giant whom I had just met). The two made their pleas. Munshi Ram won.
“Some day,” the lawyer said to me, “you will be visiting Suket.[1] It is not far from here. Just over there.”
He pointed towards the Kangra Hills. Invisible, they were not so very far from where we were sitting, could we but wend our way like the bee conveying to the hive the nectar it has gathered.
It did not occur to me to ask if Lala Munshi Ram had had a better case than Rattee-geen. I jumped, instead, to the conclusion that, being more brilliant, he had won. Thereafter I made up my mind that a Jut’s body may carry a head-piece in which a brilliant mind might function.
V
Within a few minutes after meeting Lala Munshi Ram I was to find that, in his ways, he was no Jut. His voice was loud but not raucous—certainly not unkind. He called me to his side as he sat near my father in a manner so gentle that I unhesitatingly went to him. A question or two and we were on friendly terms. Without the slightest shyness I was telling him that I meant to be a writer—that all my leisure even then was being devoted to mastering shorthand (Pitman’s Phonography).
“A worthy ambition,” he said, patting me on the back. “If you wish to succeed,” he went on, “you must persevere and work hard.”
I loved him for encouraging me. Seeing that I had taken to him, father told me that though I had met the gentleman only then, he should not really be a stranger to me. I already knew his brother-in-law—the Raizada Bhagat Ram—a barrister in Jullundar, who came to Hoshiarpur (only 25 miles distant) every now and again to appear in cases considered too important to be trusted to the local lawyers. I called him, in fact, “Uncle.”
“You see,” explained father, “Lala Munshi Ram is married to Raizada Bhagat Ram’s sister. You, therefore, should also call him ‘Uncle’.”
“So he is not Jut,” I, knowing the Raizada’s caste, commented. “He is, like ourselves, a Khatri.”
“Certainly. Who told you he was a Jut?”
I then told father how at the sight of Lala Munshi Ram’s giant frame, I had set him down in my mind as a yokel.
To be continued
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