‘A total prohibition of atomic investigations’: Glimpses of C Rajagoapalachari’s writings

Radio talk given on UNESCO

Wireless and aircraft have brought all parts of the world so very near to one another, like so many provinces in one big state. There is hereafter no excuse for letting the peoples of the world live apart from one another. All nations must be domesticated into one family.

Prejudices and notions that find expression in various forms of isolation must be made to go. A world federation must be evolved as soon as possible. To achieve this, the first step is that the minds of men must be vigorously tackled on a world-scale. Right education is the first thing to do. The seat of all difficulties as well as the point of application for all remedies for the ills arising from man’s conduct is his mind. The UNESCO is a school for this purpose of educating the world to come together into one family.

UNESCO is a clumsy but useful abbreviation for United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization. Science must become the common servant and culture the common law of the whole of the human family. Differences of theory or practice in science are not different schools of science but only stages in the discovery of truth which is one, and are therefore bound to disappear when the truth is reached. There are no separate sciences for separate nations. There is only one science in any branch for the whole world. So also varying cultures are merely resting places in man’s long journey to the good life, which is one and the same for all races and all colours. However beautiful and seemingly perfect a particular culture may be for a nation, it should be realised that it is only a stage on the march to the single world-culture which has to be evolved. All science and all cultures, whatever be the place of their development, must be brought together for comparison and contrast, for peaceful mutual reaction and coordination so that error might be eliminated and the single truth established, both in science and in culture.

Varieties of culture standing apart are passing beauties. When they come together they must coalesce and become one. There is no escape from this law of coalescence, whatever be the vanities and the illusions of each culture. When two or three forces impinge on an object, there is a single resultant. They cannot remain apart on grounds of vanity of choice. Science alone cannot lift man out of the errors that impede the march to world happiness. Science may increase our power but the law cannot be established through science or through force, the law that works from within. The law that needs no external sanctions for enforcement can be established only through culture.

A world-culture must be evolved to which all men pay homage so that a world-pattern of good behaviours may prevail. All present cultures must bring their best to a common centre of thought and enlightened cooperation so that this world pattern of good behaviour may be evolved. Biologists have after much exploration come to the conviction that the varieties of vegetable and animal life that we see around us were not evolved simultaneously in a number of places but each one in a single place and in a single set of environments. So many conditions have to operate simultaneously to produce a single variety that it is mathematically impossible that it can occur in many places at the same time. Evolved at some one place it thereafter multiplied and spread. It is a part of the same truth that all the circumstances that brought about the evolution of that remarkable and complicate entity known as man could not occur in more than one place.

Therefore we may be sure that the first man, like the first tiger or the first eagle or the first rose-plant, was evolved only in one place. From thence sprang all the varieties of human species that have now formed themselves into haughty and warring nations with seemingly unalterable prejudices and complexes as if they had been separately created by God and planted in the world in separate places to fight with one another. It is all so stupid and must disappear one day as all family quarrels must disappear. We are of one blood, children of the same original stock. Let us come together. The sooner this is done, the better. Science must become the faithful and energetic demon that will serve us all and not help one to destroy another. Let us also evolve a culture that will save us all from the pain and waste of external compulsion. This is our hope and it is on this hope the UNESCO has been founded.

Atomic research: Warning

Allahabad, January 29

“Before the end of 1948 we will have a pucca constitution which will be accepted by all. As we have to produce a democratic form of Government for four hundred millions, we must be patient and must go on making experiments for some time”, observed Mr C. Rajagopalachari, Member of Industries.

Mr Rajagopalachari in the course of his 90-minute talk condemned wholesale all atomic investigations. “If I had the power, I would prefer total prohibition of atomic investigations and would confiscate all laboratories and centres of investigations and money grants earmarked for the purpose.” The destruction of two cities of Japan, he added was too terrible for words. He did not think it probable that atomic energy could be used for cooking or for any household purpose. He honestly thought that atomic research would be used to kill people more quickly, might be, in self-defence. He reminded them that in India from the earliest days there had been a scientific attitude and laboratory approach in regard to many matters. He advised students to devote themselves to the methods of science to cultivate scientific methods of research, a capacity for understanding, precision and judgment.

Letter to Sarojini Naidu

Calcutta, September 21, 1947

Your affectionate and exquisitely illegible letter is a privilege. It is not everyone that gets handwritten literature first-hand from the author. Every night, as I go to bed, a feeling of thankfulness overwhelms me for the great good luck that Bengal has continued to enjoy in the midst of so much misfortune elsewhere. It is amazing how friendly all the people are to me and how utterly joyous the crowds that gather to see their new Governor, whenever I go out. That such simple people all over India – for I believe people everywhere are about the same – should become so utterly devoid of humanity is a puzzle.

Often I think we are to blame. In order to achieve our ends or what we thought to be our ends, we have recklessly shaped our means and we reap the whirlwind. Refugees and their tales – the more dangerous because they are true – are being systematically scattered in fertile soil all over India. There would have been, economy of passion, if somehow means had been found to reduce the spread and concentrate the necessary evil in a few places. I come now to your promise to go to Ettayapuram. Even if you by then will not have handed over charge, there is nothing to prevent you from moving out as I propose to do for this function. It will break their hearts if you do not go. An enormous and enthusiastic population is moving towards the village to see you and participate in the function. All the huge sums they are spending for the festival they will deem to have been utterly wasted if they do not find you there. My presence in your absence will be a mockery which will add to their resentment. Their affection for me is great but their desire to see you has been so fixed in their minds that it would amount to a bereavement if you disappoint them.

Her Excellency Srimati Sarojini Devi.

Excerpted with permission from Selected Works of C Rajagopalachari: Vol VIII, 1946-48, edited by Ravi K Mishra and Narendra Shukla, Orient Black Swan.