Memoir: A human rights activist reflects on his lifelong work in India’s civil liberties movements

At 75, after spending 50 years in the legal profession, I have a wealth of unforgettable memories, thoughts about society, about human rights, about struggles – there is so much to talk about. Writing about a life that has been so fully lived, to relive the events and experiences that have shaped my life, can be an extremely arduous undertaking. And so I feel that the story of my life should not revolve around me and my personal struggles.

There are countless experiences that have shaped me as a person, a civil liberties activist, a lawyer, and a democrat. My relationships with countless people, my conversations and exchanges over the years, have moulded my personality. My life in this Telugu land, my dialogues with left-wing armed movements, my services as a lawyer sought by this society, my struggles to bring justice to people in struggle and ensure the protection of their rights, my insistence on standing with victims of human rights violations in every corner of the country, and my efforts to bring specific reliefs to victims and create a general environment in our society where human rights are respected have all shaped me as a person. They are a part of my life that cannot be viewed in isolation, each by itself.

To recount my life and reflect on it is necessary, no doubt. But my life story must be the story of the struggles for a better society that I have been engaged in. What were the myriad ways in which I was drawn into that social history? How did I understand that history even as I was playing a part in its making? It is this reflection that I attempt to share through this narration of my life story.

My forebears were Tamils who had migrated to Nellore several centuries ago and settled there. I was born into a fairly well-to-do family. My father, Dr KG Iyengar, an ophthalmologist in King Edward Memorial Hospital (now Gandhi Hospital) in Secunderabad, was in government service (Madras Presidency) and was transferred to the British resident’s service in the Secunderabad Cantonment of the erstwhile Nizam state. He was known as an ‘England-returned Doctor’.

He established himself quite well, and as bigamy was not prohibited among Hindus, he married a second time – his second wife a child widow and teacher (who after marriage taught in Keyes High School, Secunderabad). This marriage was preceded by tremendous domestic violence on my mother, his first wife, a defiant woman who refused to submit to his wishes. She had no parental family, except for her elder sister, who was widowed in adolescence, had a posthumous child, and lived amidst great penury. My mother left her husband and moved with her children to his joint family house at Nellore. A strong-willed woman, she supported herself and her children on the income from the little ancestral land in Nellore, fending for herself and her children amidst the hostility of her husband’s extended family. With this our economic condition slid to the lower middle class.

I studied in Nellore in the Telugu medium till the sixth form. After completing Secondary School Learning Certificate (SSLC), I moved to Madras, and stayed with my maternal cousin whom we affectionately called Rajappa. It was towards the end of the freedom struggle that I joined Pachaiyappa College in Madras to do my Intermediate. The Cabinet Mission to India led by Lord Pethick-Lawrence placed its proposal for the transfer of power to India, and in that context also visited our college when I was there. At that time, there were a few factors that influenced me greatly. One was reading books and literature voraciously – especially English literature. By the time I passed out of law college, I had read all the English literature there was to read.

In Hyderabad state, around this time, there was a severe repression on communists. Vasanth’s granduncle, ASK Iyengar, who was organising workers in Hyderabad, had to go underground to avoid arrest. He came to Madras in hiding. Rajappa provided shelter to ASK. Because of his standing in the official cricket establishment, Rajappa wielded considerable influence. Perhaps it was because of
this that ASK’s period underground passed uneventfully. ASK also introduced me to a lot of books. It was on his suggestion that I read Maurice Dobb’s Studies in the Development of Capitalism.

After completing my Intermediate in Pachaiyappa College, I joined Vivekananda College in Madras for BA (Hons), specialising in economics, political science, and industrial labour. The political atmosphere in Madras during those four years was electric.

There was not much to study in college. There were student competitions in college. The Dravidian movement was very strong in Pachaiyappa College and outside. It was the Dravida Kazhagam that first sounded the warning that India was a plural society that could not be confined within any single identity. This was the first challenge that confronted the national freedom movement. The Tamil lecturer in Pachaiyappa College, Anbazhagan, was a Dravidian movement leader.

Our college was the centre of the Dravida Kazhagam student wing. Periyar EV Ramasamy Naicker was a revered figure and a great orator. The influence of the self-respect movement and the anti-Brahmin movement was visible on the streets. In Madras, there were demonstrations before hotels serving “Brahmin meals” to drop the word “Brahmin,” as a result several of them replaced “Brahmin” with “vegetarian.”

During this time, Nehru visited Madras to inaugurate the Indian Science Congress. There was a huge black-flag demonstration against him. The anti-Brahmin movement also opposed Hindi.

Hindi boards at railway stations were blackened with tar. The Tamil people declared that they would not recognize Hindi as the national language. The opposition to Hindi also turned into an opposition to leaders from the north. Nehru, who under normal circumstances drove in an open-top vehicle, stopped this practice in Madras.

Notwithstanding the shifts in the Dravida Kazhagam movement later, in the initial stages it was invigorating. It was not a movement that was triggered by one or two people. It was a movement based on a deep faith in, and aspirations for, a different world. Although born a Brahmin, and unable to secure a BA seat in Pachaiyappa College for that reason, I recognised the Dravidian anti-Brahmin movement as one that worked for the development of Tamil society. That was, as a matter of fact, a movement anchored in the values of a different order that resurrected the Tamil people. The non-Brahmin middle classes would never have been able to occupy positions of authority were it not for that movement. The strength of the movement was evident from the fact that it was possible for an unknown law student to defeat the famous Kamaraj Nadar.

I was always a mediocre student. I did not have any aspirations of excelling in studies. After completing an MA in economics, I had limited options before me: prepare for the competitive exams and appear for the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and Indian Foreign Service (IFS) examinations; join oil companies like Burmah Shell, Caltex or Esso; or study law and become a lawyer. Seats in law college were easy to get, so that was the only option that seemed doable to me. It is of course possible to appear for competitive examinations while studying law. I did that but failed in the interview. I have the unusual distinction of securing zero marks in the personality test. Even today, I am baffled by the way in which my personality was measured in such strict arithmetical terms.

Excerpted with permission from The Speaking Constitution: A Sisyphean Life in Law, KG Kannabiran, translated from the Telugu by Kalpana Kannabiran, Harper Collins.