Mr. Prakasam as Prime Minister has to work in two mediums for
none of which he is amply equipped. As a speaker, he lacks uniformity of style.
He is at his best when provoked. The short oration that he delivered on the
High Court Bench on the occasion of the Simon Commission’s visit, is one of the
best I have ever heard. On that day he excelled the greatest masters of
eloquence in our day. It was because, I suppose, indignation had taken complete
hold of him. It made him a fiery figure of wrath. There was no need for the
labour of consecutive thought. Provocations like the Simon Commission are not
however of frequent occurrence. The result, so far as Prakasam is concerned, is
a drab level of speech divested of the life, the vigour and the sparkle that indignation
at high tempo can impart to platform exercises in political speech. To make
matters worse, the floor of a legislative chamber is no platform for political
propaganda of the party type. It is a ring for cruel fights with foils off
between gladiators out to draw their antagonists’ blood and send them crawling
to the dust.
* * *
But on Prakasam at the Treasury
Bench in the Assembly the skill of political adversaries is lost. Shafts of wit
cut deep in proportion to sensitiveness. Sensitiveness and a quick
understanding to together. Those who smart under the lashing of hard words and raillery
are precisely the persons who can, out of their very pain, make retorts and
repartees sharp enough to sting their tormentors with. All missiles meant to
hurt get blunted on the rough hide of Prakasam’s invulnerable mind. He wastes
no panic in anticipations of disaster. Perils and pin-pricks that drive the
nervous to wreck find him in blithe, confident good humour. On the floor of the
Assembly he will soon be the despair of the caustic and the clever bent on
exploiting the opportunities of question-time and debate for the discomfiture
of the Government. It is the alertness of the attacked to grasp the content of
charges and denunciations that gives to both these their swift turns of
interest and of drama. But Prakasam will not meet anyone half way in endeavour
hostile to himself. The endeavour is spent out while the Premier takes time to
think; and before that, people get the impression that the next item of the
agenda has been made to wait long enough.
* * *
Prakasam used to combine the
labours of a journalist with those of a politician in the years he conducted
Swarajya. He was then given to indefatigable tours and brought to headquarters
from each tour vivid accounts of his experiences with the people he had come in
contact with. The vitality of his identification with the lot of the common
people gave life to what he wrote in those days, but as a writer he is not of
much consequence. Good writing is not merely a matter of grouping words. It
involves a pleasing blending of sound and sense. Not only should ideas be
fitted into a proper sequence, one leading into the other, the whole should be
given a form convincing to the mind, appealing to the emotions and agreeable to
the ear.
* * *
Neither as a speaker nor as a
writer is Prakasam great. Administrative leadership cannot in a democratic age
do without persuasion which must be attempted only through spoken or written
words and in no other way. These services can be commandeered and rendered
competently by well-chosen men, in the same way in which technical tasks like
engineering are done efficiently by trained experts. Silence is not so fatal to
the prestige of leadership as inefficient publicity by way of speech or
writing.
* * *
Something to speak about is what
a Government should have. People do not expect from Prakasam great speeches or
captivating discourses. His popularity is not based on his ability to talk well
or write well. It is based, if an origin has to be found, on his wanderings to
the haunts of the common people, specially on occasions of famine, pestilence
or cyclone. Merely rushing forward to a scene of distress confers no benefit on
the sufferers, but popularity is built on no rigid calculations of benefits
received. A kind gesture from a once opulent poor man evokes more gratitude
from the generality of people who are poor than any rich donor’s gift in cash
or kind.
* * *
But people will not be content
with gestures, however kind, from administrators. From administrators they
expect tangible measures for betterment of their condition. The Premier’s
position will depend, far more than on the support of this or that big gun of
the Congress, on the initiative shown by himself in the matter of bettering the
people’s condition. Routine is the enemy of initiative. Prohibition, elimination
of corruption, planning for full employment and prosperous collective life, all
await his initiative. If it be forthcoming, who can dare to cross his path? A
Prime Minister that can plan and lead is what the province wants. As a first
item of leadership, it may be suggested that the Premier should insist that all
his Cabinet colleagues should adorn the Treasury Bench all the time the
Assembly is on, instead of, as they have done this week, insulting it by
non-attendance, dispersing to all corners of the province on ridiculous errands
that could well have waited.—(June 8, 1946) S A K A.
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