How Caste Politics, Communism and Congress Transformed Mysore University

Preface

THE MOTTO OF the University of Mysore is a perfect mirror that reflects the original ideal and aspiration of its founders. It is the profound phrase from the Bhagavad Gita: Na hi jñānena sadṛśam — There is nothing equal to knowledge. 

The verse containing this phrase not only proclaims the supremacy of Self-Knowledge (Atma Vidya) but also, in a concise form, indicates the path to its attainment. In other words, it is in complete harmony with the fundamental philosophy, concepts, and practices of our country’s tradition of education and knowledge. The foundation of this tradition is the tenet embodied in, Sā vidyā yā vimuktaye (That is knowledge which leads to liberation). The meaning is clear: only that education which is a means to spiritual liberation (Moksha) is true education.

Mysore Diary

Sometime last year, I finished reading B.G.L. Swamy’s Mysore Diary. It taught me how the University of Mysore that Swamy saw in the late 1970s had, in the most ironic sense, become a hub of “liberation.” To put it bluntly, the essence of this teaching is that in Maharaja’s College and Manasagangotri (Mysore University’s campus), knowledge and education themselves had been liberated — i.e., set free from the campus.

Mysore Diary is Swamy’s last book. It was published fourteen years after his passing. Though it is a matter of regret, there is also a faint consolation: at least the book had the good fortune of being published.

In this slim 81-page booklet, Swamy’s distinctive stamp is visible throughout. As in his Collegu Ranga, Collegu Tarangagalu and Tamilu Talegala Naduve, Swamy’s trademark sarcasm, satire, bitter wit and the art of transforming the intensity of horrid situations into mirth, only to spur the reader into deep reflection, is evident here as well. Swamy had undoubtedly attained unparalleled mastery in this craft. If one travels the path of his humour, the journey ultimately ends in the capital city of disgust.

Mysore Diary is, in essence, the story of the downfall of the University of Mysore. It is a succinct chronicle by an eyewitness who pierced the veil of events unfolding before him. If one were to capture the emotional essence of Swamy’s words, it is a Shakespearean tragedy that played out in the Maharaja’s College and Manasagangotri. It is a bizarre mixture of the rasas of humour, fury, terror, disgust, and pathos. There is no place for the śānta (peace) rasa.

B.G.L. Swamy did not go to the University of Mysore on his own accord. He was sent there as a visiting professor by the UGC for a period of one year. By then, he had already retired several years earlier. He stayed in Mysore from 1979–80, and it was there that he passed away.

An Abode of Knowledge Turns into a Graveyard

There is a reason for this longish preface.

In Mysore Diary, the Maharaja’s College and Manasagangotri that Swamy shows us had long since become an educational and cultural crematorium. With biting humour, he also informs us the terrifying truth of how all the traces of its past glory had been completely erased. It is because of this that this crematorium appears even more terrifying. What turned a place that was once a Vidya Kashi (the Kashi of Knowledge) into a burning ground was not war or natural calamity — it was the dance of destruction caused by Arishadvarga (the six inner enemies of man) armed with and empowered by political power.

In the foreword to Mysore Diary, the late scholar Sri H.M. Nayak also delivers the same verdict, in a tone mixed with despair and sorrow, along with a sense of helplessness. He writes that he had a lifelong bond with the University of Mysore and that it was a part of his soul. Though Nayak had himself held many high positions there for a long time, he had to accept defeat before this dance of destruction. When one recalls this history now, one realises the unimaginable power of that destructive force. The conclusion is inescapable: that the heinous events that occurred in real life in the realms of our education, culture and society in the recent past sound unimaginable today.