# The Message and Ministrations of Dewan Bahadur R. Venkata Ratnam, volume 1/Introductory Sketch

INTRODUCTORY SKETCH.
EXACTLY sixty years ago, belying the older look of today, Mr. R. Venkata Ratnam was born on Maharnavami in the year 1862 at Masulipatam , a town of historic interest on the East Coast and now the headquarters of Kistna District. Sprung of military blood on both the parental sides, he possesses a stalwart, well-built, imposing frame in which dwelt more robust health formerly than for the past few years. But the eyes are as expressive as ever under a protruding forehead indicative of a massive intellect.
His early education he received in Northern and Central India at places where his father, Shubedar Raghupatruni Appayya Naidu’s regiment was stationed from time to time. Hence, while Telugu is his mother-tongue, his second language at school and college was Urdu; and he displays still a command over that language and an acquaintance with ​its literature such as to challenge the admiration of many a learned Musalman. He read at the Zillah High School in Banda (U. P.) during the Head-mastership of Babu Dinanath Banerji with Babu Gangadhara Mukherji for the First Assistant. From the former, expressions of kind commendation, would be received from time to time in later life. And with the latter is associated, as will presently be seen, a lasting memory sacred through life. From Banda he proceeded to Hyderabad (Deccan) while in the Matriculation class, and thereby passed from the hands of two Bengalee teachers into those of a third, the well-known Dr. Aghornath Chattopadhyaya, then Head-master of the Nizam’s Government High School. ‘An ineffectual and fruitless l½ months’ there; and the young student shifted to St. George’s Grammar School, Chudderghaut, then under an able Head-master, Mr. W. A. Home, to whom was due the first insight into a correct study of English.
A staunch Vaishnava devotee of the orthodox type like the bulk of the followers of his ​calling, Shubedar Appaya Naidu brought up Ills son in strictly conservative ways; and to the end of his life, in spite of sharp divergence of belief and practice, the masterful temper of the father always held the meek-spirited son in almost physical dread. During the early days of his association with the Brahma Samaj, Venkata Ratnam was, on one occasion, coutnied by his stern-natured father within a closed room, well-nigh starving for two days for the disobedience of persistent attendance at prayer-meetings. His interest in that great religious movement of modern India was first awakened at the Banda High School. The name of Rajah Rammohan Roy, found mentioned in a small text-book of Indian History as primarily responsible for the abolition of Sati, prompted his side-enquiry in the class as to who that good man was. The teacher, hailing from the Rajah’s own province but no Brahmo himself, briefly described him as the founder of a new religions sect believing in One Only God and opposing itself to idolatry. This incidental hint set the thoughtful youth seriously a-thinking; he ​felt cheered to find what he had not ‘suspected,’ the existence among the Hindus of an organised body that stood for a principle confirmatory of the already self-determining pointings of his own inner compass.
For University training he went up to the Madras Christian College, from which he graduated with physical Science for his Optional Subject in 1885. Even in those early days, as earlier still, his friends and professors marked him out for his fine spirit and intellectual capabilities. To his alma mater and to the benign personality of the illustrations Rev. Dr. Miller, Mr. Venkata Ratnam has always retained a passionate devotion, and year after year he takes a leading paid in the celebrations of the ‘College Day’ at Madras; while this premier educational institution of the South is justly proud of him as one of her most brilliant and representative products. He had the honour to preside over the said annual functions with general approbation in the year 1910.
It was while pursuing his collegiate studies that he joined the Southern India Drahma ​Samaj at Madras. As will be noted from the memorial address in this volume, “the decisive step” was due, before other human factors, to the first missionary visit to Madras in 1881 of Pandit Sivanath Sastri, thence-forth “always counted, always respected, always revered as my guru,” “my soul’s parent." Accordingly, a very recent letter under date August 30, 1922, denotes thus the precedence amongst the first three in “the gradation of intimate soul-deep affections”—“the co-pilgrim (behind the veil these 33 years but never out of holy touch), the guru (similarly veiled exactly 30 years after) and the Pradhan Acharya (sightless to all but the ‘Unseen’) in far-off yet next-door Edinburgh.” During the period in question, with the rich promise in him rapidly unfolding to its fulness by strenuous aspiration and activity, he began to drink deep of the formative influences of the metropolis. At that time, he felt considerably indebted for personal spiritual guidance, among others, to the late Mannava Butchayya Pantulu, then the leading spirit of the Madras Samaj. Then he read widely; he wrote free​ly for the organs of the Samaj edited by himself-—first the Brahma Prakasika and subsequently the Fellow-Worker.
For about a year after taking his Degree, he was connected with the editorial staff of a Madras Weekly known as The People'e Friend. Then he joined as a teacher, first the Theistic High School, Rajahmundry , and next the C. M. S. High School, Ellore, from where he transferred himself to the Hindu High School, Masulipatam, for the two years 1887-88. He took his M. A. Degree in English language and literature in 1891 and the L. T. Degree in 1897 and for some time also pursued his studies for law. This latter course, however, was finally abandoned for his divinely-appointed vocation—that noblest of professions through which, in the Telugu country, his life has provcd eminently helpful to the cause of enlightenment and progress. In 1892-93, he worked in Pachaiyappa’s College, Madras, as an “able and agreeable” Assistant Professor of English, according to the testimony of the then Principal. ​ Later, for 5 years—from 1894 to 1898—he settled down once more in his own native-place of Masulipatam, amidst loved and loving ones, as Assistant Professor of English and History , besides being the Superintendent of the High School Department, in Noble College. There the fullest use was made of the varied opportunities of good work that offered themselves. He did good work as a Municipal Councillor. He was Chairman of the Primary Examination Board in Kistna for a term of three years. In particular, under the auspices of the local Social Purity Association, he opened a memorable campaign for Purity and against Nautch and soon enlisted the practical sympathy and support of influential and promising spirits and, with signal success, extended the crusade far and wide over the Telugu country. The Masulipatam Brahma Samaj, which had been in existence for over a decade and of which he had been a member since the days of his teachership in the Hindu High School, had been keeping up a languid life at the time through the devotion of a few old adherents. Now he threw himself ​whole-heartedly into the work of this little, straggling Samaj and soon strengthened it and spread its beneficent influence for social and religious reform among the educated public and particularly the student section of the town. The vicissitudes of fortune of an unwelcome Theistic worker amid evangelical Christian surroundings took Mr. Venkata Ratnam: away to another latitude in 1899, even because his influence was proved to have been too strong and sound and sober! The impress left behind elicited, however, even from the Head with whom he had to part company an unmeasured appreciation of the "conscientious and high-minded gentleman" in whom was lost "not only a colleague but a personal friend." Later, too, when the Principalship of Pittapur Rajah’s College fell vacant in 1904, the same old authority, the Rev. C. W. A. Clarke, m.a., felt constrained thus to express himself, suo moto, to the College Council at Cocanada: "In my eighteen years’ experience of Indian education, I have not met a better teacher than Mr. Venkata ​Ratnam nor have I met one whose personal influence amongst students was as powerful.”
The next term of service was at Secunderabad as Head of Mahboob College, where, like the puissant Samson grinding at his mill, he laboured for 6 years, 1889-94, imparting the fragrance of his stainless character to the lascivious atmosphere of that luxury-laden city. And at the close of the chapter there early in 1905, Secunderabad more than vindicated itself in the high honour done, on a phenomenal scale, with valedictory addresses and other tokens of affectionate reverence and gratitude from a number of influential and representative institutions like the Deccan Social Purity and Temperance Association, the Deccan Social Reform Association, the Hope of India Lodge, No. 25, of the Independent Order of Good Templars, the Somasundavam Mudaliar Reading Room and Library, the Anjuman-e-Mufidul Muslimin and the ‘past and present’ Parsee students of Mahboob College, besides, of course, the general body of students and the members of the staff. "To us he was all that Dr. ​Arnold was to Rugby," wrote one long afterwards (in 1918) as a retrospect of those days.
The next removal from Moslem to Andhra environment was like the return of the exile to home-land. To the educational—teaching and organising—work done at Cocanada as Principal of Pittapur Rajah’s College for nearly a decade and a half from February 1905 down to July 1919, enough testimony has been borne at different stages and from diverse quarters. The most fruitful, as also the longest, term of headship in the annals of the College commenced with the express aspiration (as per a letter, dated October 2, 1904) to realise its ends as "Primarily a ‘national’ institution intended and calculated to be of some tangible use and help in moulding the India that is into the India that is to be—the ‘promised land,' as Ranade puts it, in which are to be worked out and realised the world’s desire and hope of union and harmony." "Exaggerated apprehensions and groundless allegations" as to aggressive socio-religious hostility took little time to melt away; and the confirmation ​came by a unanimous vote, before time, after the very first year and at the instance of the very agencies that had opposed hie introduction in the beginning. Yes; such is the irresistible charm of Mr. Venkata Ratnam’s personality. Such has all along been his systematic career—to conquer hate by Jove. In fact, wherever he settled, he was at first dreaded and reviled as an unsparing denouncer of individual vices and national iniquities : nay, his very life amongst people was a silent rebuke to every species of unworthiness. But, in course of time, the strength of his character would sliance all antipathy into abasement, admiration, assimilation. The completion of the first decade was observed as a festive event all-round: and the ‘Address’ of warm felicitations from the Staff extolled "the expansion of the Institution, in all its departments, to nearly three times what it was when you assumed charge and the more than tenfold increase in the College Department alone as, "by itself, an eloquent testimony to the earnest care, fatherly solicitude and pious ​devotion with which you have discharged the stewardship so judiciously and confidingly committed to your charge.” Again, “During this happy interval, it has been the good fortune of the Staff and all connected with the interests of the College to see its affairs placed on a permanent footing and to find in the highly-honoured Rajah (now Maharajah) Garu of Pittapuram a patron and rock of support”. Likewise did the Students, in their valedictoiy words on the eve of the final retirement, “ proudly rejoice to feel that your name will for long years be venerated by the Andhra student as identical with genius and erudition, sympathy and charity, purity and self-consecration.” Visitors of eminence like Provincial Governors and Executive Councillors as well as the official University Commissioners came from time to time to convey the same commendation and carry the same conviction. Among the administrative improvements of a far-reaching character were : the reconstitution of the Management, the free admission of girls and of members ​of the ‘depressed classes’ and the enforcement of the principle of strict religious neutrality at school. This last-named position is particularly noteworthy, strange as it certainly appears in a leader of reform like Mr. Venkata Ratnam. But with him—to quote again from the letter of October 1904—“the work to V)e done at school is clear-cut, with a precise aim—culture and character. Polemical theology or controversial sociology has no place there. An abiding sense of the Deity, a welling love for Humanity, a solemn respect for self—that is all that is needed."
What wonder, what offence, if ideals at once so pure and exalted and so scrupulously and systematically pursued have gone, in effect, to transtigure the class-room itself into a temple? A critical scholar and an impressive teacher naturally endued with in-seeing sympathy with, and practically realising a holy harmony between, both the gay and the grave aspects, the L’Allegro and the Il Penseroso elements, of life and nature—Mr. Venkata Ratnam’s masterly expositions of ​the deep philosophy of Shakespeare and Carlyle, Wordsworth and Tennyson, have constituted in themselves not only an intellectual treat but also a spiritual stimulus known only to those who have had the good fortune to sit and learn at his feet. Again, as to the larger ministry outside the pale of direct school-work during the long years given to Cocanada, suffice it to point to the ‘fruit gathering’ of the following pages by way of samples of the self-expression through the media of the Young Men’s Prayer Union, new-planted like the Young Men’s Social Purity and Temperance Union, and of the local Brahma Samaj, already existent but soon reinvigorated.
A passing note may here be made of the variety of useful public movements prominently associated with and participated in at different times and centres. In his own vocational line, Mr. Venkata Ratnam presided more than once (at Vijianagaram and Masulipatam) over the Northern Circars Students’ Conference which he had himself helped to create. He has repeatedly been on ​the Board of Examiners, besides being a Fellow, of the Madras University. He sat on the S.S.L.C. Board for the triennium 1916-18. He was called to give evidence before the Public Service Royal Commission in 1914. He was made responsible in 1918 for the formulation of a scheme of Moral Instruction in Secondary Schools. And he has served as Chairman of the Government Education Re-organisation Committee recently formed. Apart from these, he was a member of the Godavari District Board and the Vice-President of the Cocanada Taluk Board for 6 years, besides being in the local Municipal Council for several terms. He presided over the Kistna, Political and Social Conferences at Guntur in 1898, the Provincial Social Conference at Ranipet (North Arcot) in 1904, the Northern Circars Theistic Conference at Rajahmundry and the Kistna and Guntur Social Conferences at Narsaraopeta in 1905, the All-India Theistic Conference at Calcutta in 1906 (the Presidential Address of which appears in this volume), the Adi Dravida Conference at Amalapuram and the Anti-Non​Co-operation Conference at Cocanada in 1921, Again, with the R. V. M. G. Ramarao Bahadur Orphanage at Cocanada, founded in 1909, he will ever be associated as its prime architect, even to the planning of the magni- ficent buildings. In fact, in ever so many other instances, his has been the inspiration behind the renowned’ bount.y of the noble Prince of Pithapuram. In a word, learning and wisdom, charity and piety, have combined to make his remarkable personality a whole institution in itself. Upon a life of such high- toned and many-sided activities the seal of Government recognition was set bj’ the con- ferment of the titles of Rao Bahadur and Dewan Bahadur in 1912 and 1918 respectively and, later still, by nomination to the Reformed Provincial Legislative Council, where they have now duly learnt, to seek and value his sage counsel as one of tlie elected Deputy Pi-esidents. In his earlier days, Mr. Venkata Ratnam used to take a keen interest and an actiAe part in direct i)oIitical work ; and his discourses on the Indian National Congress, de]iv('red in the eighties, are fondly ​remembered as fixing the high water-mark of his vigorous eloquence.
This magnificent faculty of eloquence Mr. Venkata Batnam ijossesses in a striking measure, though with him it is practically an uncultivated art of nature. The words alw'ays- run before the thoughts in public utterance ; and, spell-bound , you witness a rushing tor- rent of i language laden with a wealth of ima- gery, allusion, anecdote, illustration and quo- tation, flowing with a rapidity w'hich proves the despair of the expert reporter. Calm and sedate starts the thought ; and as it careers along its lofty flight, height after height, in all its manifold applications, periods upon periods of balanced sentences invest it with an impassioned and impressive expression. Truly, liow God has vouchsafed the gift of effective speech to the leaders of the Brahma Samaj with an ample hand ! And of these the subject of this sketch is no meanrejwesentative. For, with all his remarkable powders, he has “ littered nothing base ” but his “ words are always half-battles for the true.” Aye, so he has spoken ; for so he has lived. In the whole ​record of his varied work, including the three and thirty years of educational service amidst Christian, Muham.madan and Hindu surroundings, “he never lowered his flag”, as the Ohrhtian College Magazine aptly put it in commendation of his ‘ Kao Bahadur ’ distinction.
“ Half-battles for the true I ‘ Nay, it is far from proper to say that his is a combative, militant natiu'e. A born fisher of men, he never once betrays Jhimself into the least little obtrusion of himself or his views. Ibuber, as a candle unconsciously throws its beams, he is a silent radiating centre of illumination in v hose presence it slowlj' becomes impossible to think a mean thought or utter a debasyig word. Those who only know of him or know him but from a distance often fancy liim too ])rone to impress liimself dogmatically upon others or to imbue them didactically with his faddistic view's of things. Siispicious hostility thus fears aggressive proselytism in him ; but at the same time its very absence, in truth, is exactly what he is blamed for by some sympathising friends. The fact is, he simply lives ​kin ideals and is content to leave the life to preach itself. He is a firm believer in the conscious up-building of character in each individual life ; and his one aim is more and more to acquire and impai't a healthy tctne to the inner springs of c'onduct in growing accord with the Will of the All-Holy through the varied relations of life. Accordingly, not even his worst calumniators, however much they may fall foul of his heresy and heterodoxy, would ever raise the slightest breath of a whimper against his own unimpeachable character ; while association with him is accepted as a sufficient passjiort for general integrity in his friends and followers. The root of all these outward excellences lies in his inner spiritual experiences. With him, recreation, morality, reform, all are organically related to religion. His is constitutionally a temper full of hilarity ; he is habitually fond of company ; and in social circles he laughs and ]»]ays with the bounding enthusiasm of a pleasure-seeker, ever ready with sallies of wit and humour, ■with apt anecdote and ejadless cobversatioB , though »ever self -indulgent, ​self-obtrusive oi* even self-conscious. But dbej) down this apparent — let me add also, transparent — outburst of merriment, there runs a clear under-current of solemn purpose, even the . unbending of the spirit for its own strengthening and the realisation of the conviction that the tiod we own is a God of Joy and Bliss Eteimal. A perusal of the article on “ Religion and Recreation ” will illustrate this habitually elevated stand-point even to the stranger. Again, if he is generous in his private charities — and these, extensive for his limited means, are such that the left hand knoweth not what the right hand doeth — it is, not for the love of a good name or even out of pity for want and woe, but primarily for the vindication of the unfailing providence of Love Eternal. He cannot bear that the destitute and the distressed should feel that, wherever they go, they must only knock against iron-walls of destiny and that the Rule]- of this Universe is but a ruthless tyrant magnified into infinity. So he picks up a family of orphan-waifs by the rail-road and makes them as more than children unto ​himself. Sohe suppoiis the Ohennapnri Annadana Samajam as one of its deA^oted wdrk^ers' since its foundation. And so, in a Vordj he cannot say ‘no’ to any call for Succour from any quarter. Or again, born as a meat -eater, he turn* a strict vegetarian on principle, extremely sensitive to the sin of helping to take away a life none can give. Furthermore, in his staunch advocacy of the cause of social pm’ity and its natural corollary, the anti-nautch moA’^ement, Avith Avliich ])erhaps his name is l)est identified in' the public mind both- within and without the Madras Presidency, he takes high ground,' maintaining that “ purity is to character what symmetry is to beauty — not an accident of adornnAcnt but an essential of structure ” and that “ piety Avithout purity is baser than gross superstition — it is sant-tified sin ; ” and decrying “ the custom that invites undisguised shame to the hall of honour or restores convicted impurity to the place of position.” It was in this spirit, that, against over-powering odds, he led the agitation in the famous “ Norton incident ” on the Congressf ​platform of 1894 It is also in this spirit that he has produced his really monumental essay in the Hon’ble Mr. C. Y. Chintamani’s publication on “ Indian Social Beform” — a thesis in which he has given us of his best and to which, pending its reappearance in this series, the reader may profitably turn once ’more to measure the ethical and spiritual grandeur as well as the literary greatness of author. Also, pre-eminent among Mr. Venkata Ratnam’s distinctive traits is his peculiar devotion to the ideal of monogamy. Possessed with a profound sense of the sublime sanctity of the marriage relation, he holds, to quote his own ]iregnant woi’ds, that “ the true test of monogamy is the monocracy of the whole heart by the one all-endeniing, as the true mark of monotheism is the monolatry, with the whole soul, of the One All-SufiBcient.” “ Those never loved who dream that they loved once,” said Mrs. Browning. After 5 brief years of wedded life, it has fallen to Mr. Venkata Ratnam’s own lot, since the close" of his twenty-seventh year, to concretise ​this supremely exalted ideal in himself. Along the footetore path of the weary widowed race, however, there shines the light of the '• larger hope/’ the hope beyond the grave, which proclaims, with Emerson, in silent tones of solace :
“ Hearts are dust ; hearts’ loves remain. Heart’s love will meet Thee again.”
Thus to the eye of living faith, there is no death but only transition, end the chastening ministrations of sorrow tend to. cure the repining of the soul and deepen its resignation to the Divine decree, as witness the touching memorial outpourings in this volume. Accordingly, tender in heart and strong in affections, Mr. Yenhata Batnam has taught himself and taught us the precious lessmt to jefl the stroke of affliction like a woman but to /acs it also like a man. And if, albeit this rigid monogamist position, Mr. Venkata Batnam — greatly to the bewildermeHt of superficial critics — lends his warm support to the cause of the remarriage of woman, it is fundamentally because of the rery anxiety ​to elevate the mamage ideal to the lofty j>edestal of Rnskin’s “ single love ’’ that he insists on for the widowed to rebuild a home in vieAv t(;» the ends of self-pealisation. For, what moral vahie, afteJ' all, can attach to the celibacy induced by social coercion, and how far is it compatible with the acknowledged sublimity of the matrimonial relation- ship ?
j^s already noted, the key-note to this happy combination of culture and character is furnished by Mr. Venkata Ratnam’s personal religiousness. Penetrate into the deei)-hidden folds of his inner being, and you soon discover that his main-spring in life is God-consciousness, — or rather, the haunting sense of want of God-consciousness and the utter self-abasement of tlie unregenerate nature, itself a living symptom of ceaseless spiritual growth. “ Nearer, my God, nearer to Thee ” is, indeed, the silent song of his heart, rising, above and regulating the outer music of all his life. This is the ope distinctive under-note rings through all the succeeding pages. - With him, as .we may. ​observe, it is a p'rofanatibn to' give a capital G to any Proper Noun save to the dearest name of all, that of ‘the Nameless of the hundred names.*
Little wonder that Mr. Venkata Ratiianii, with the magnetic power that makes disciple's, has made close friends and followers in several places far and near. For each one of them, he has a distinct corner in his capacious heart not meant for others ; and kind, courteous and accessible to all, he maintains individual relations with these. In spite of himself, the pink of his pupils perforce must always be won for the cause of the true, the good and the right and be bound to him by the silver links and silken ties of gratitude and reverence. “I have elected to be a teacher more for the sacred responsibilities and noble opportunitios than for flie ample emoluments Of the profession. Accordingly, 1 have been desirous of living, God knows to what purpose, a life from which the young — the hoiie of our dear land — may take a hint or two.” (1904). For this “spoiling’* of youth, obloquy often becomes his portion. But, with ​Socratic eeranity, h« sustains himself witii the thought, ‘‘ Can a Soul’s bi’other he ah* <iuired at a loss cost than the ■vt’orst that tnau may say? ” Hence, no Theistic believer or body, no liberal-minded spirit among high and: low in the Walks of public or jS’ivate life, in the Nol’thern Circars but has derived inspiration from his noble soul . No harsh world upon his lip, no graceless ruffle in his temper, simple and austere in habit, ^‘wearing all that weight of learning lightly like a flower” in all humility, he cannot but strike even the casual, distant observer as a beautiful examjde of plain living and high thinking. “ Y oii are living here the life of an anchoiito ” was what a discerning visitor once remarked in his home.
ShOidcomings there aie in the fruitful, if not eventful, life delineated above. this life and the life of the ever-venerated Kao Hahadur Veeresalingam I’antulu, such as they are ,make up the two hemispheres of one glorious orb of illumination for us in the Southern PresMency — Venkata Katnam the sage, ’Veercsalinga m the hero; the one witb his idegi of saintliness and passion wordbip, ​other with his ideal of righteousness and passion for work; the one an influence to mould the aspirations, the other a force to direct the energies—both, the twin-stars that have swayed, and shall long sway, the southern horizon. Blessed be the name of the Holy Spirit of Love that has vouchsafed us these invaluable gifts in the fellowship of the Brahma Samaj for the good of Andhra and unto the glory of Mother Ind!
V. R.