As a student, I took a good degree and was expecting like others of my generation to sit for the I.C.S. in London. My father who was a man of moderate means has saved just enough money to finance me in England. A few months however before, I was due to leave, the bank in which the money has been kept failed and my father lost the whole of his modest savings. I then applied for a Tata scholarship but I was turned down. I mentioned this some time ago to my friend, J.R.D. Tata and he told me that if I cared, he was prepared to recommend me now for a Tata scholarship with retrospective effect!
Having failed to go to England, I decided to study Law and started work as a junior to one of the leading criminal lawyers in Madras. My first case was a criminal appeal in the Madras High Court from the judgment of a district Court which has sentenced seven persons to transportation for life. Ramaswami Mudaliar who was working in the same Chambers acted jointly with me in this case. We won the case and all the accused were acquitted. But since the fee for the case had already been paid to my senior, neither Mudaliar nor I got anything for it either from the clients or from our senior. The seven accused came to see me later and presented me with a bunch of bananas which was all the remuneration I received for the case. I don’t believe Mudaliar got even this.
After a few years, I decided to leave the legal profession and went to England to study Economics. My tutor at the London School of Economics was Sidney Webb, who was Professor of Public Administration in the University. I enjoyed working under him. He was then at the height of his powers and reputation.
One of my outside interests in London was teaching in a Sunday School. The children were mainly working class boys between ten and twelve years of age. I remember in one of my first classes the boys found it difficult to follow me. So I Asked “what do you think, boys? Am I speaking English or am I speaking my own Indian Language?” quick came the reply. “Alf and Alf Guvnor”. When I was leaving London, the best boy in the class thought it was up to him to say something that would specially please me. So he said “You know, Sir, when you first came here, you were very black. Now, you are getting a little white”.
From London I went to Oxford. A great deal of my work in London and oxford related to agricultural economics. The Madras Government was then thinking of appointing an officer in the Co-operative Department for developing special types of societies. They therefore asked a Madras I.C.S. Officer, a Britisher, who was then working at the Indian Office to interview me. I went from oxford to London one afternoon to see him. The interview lasted nearly an hour during which he did practically all the talking and I hardly had a look-in. I remember going back to oxford feeling I must have made a poor impression on him having had so little to say for myself. I however got the appointment and later while I was Madras, in some context the file regarding my appointment happened to pass through my hand and I saw the letter which was sent to the Madras Government by the officer who interviewed me in London. What he said was this “Matthai is an intelligent young fellow, but like most Indians who have been in England; he is inclined to talk a great deal".
I worked as assistant registrar under a senior British member of I.C.S. who was then registrar of co-operative societies in Madras. A week or so after I joined the Department, he and I had to go on tour to inspection and were travelling in the same railway compartment. In conversation, he called me “Matthai” and I called him “Mr.____”. He suddenly stopped for while and said – Now with regard to vocatives, I call you “Matthai”, and you call me “Sir”. That was my first experience of government service.
I soon left Co-operation and joined the Educational Service combining the Chair of Economics in the Presidency College, Madras, with the corresponding Chair in the University. That was stimulating work. I lectured both at the University and at the college and being then a nominated member of the madras legislative council occasionally made speeches in the Legislature. Satyamurti was then leading the congress opposition. He was an old pupil of mine and our relations were very friendly. I remember during a budget debate, he asked for a reduction of Rs. 100/- in the Education Budget to call attention to the fact that a British professor employed in the Presidency College and delivered only five lectures during the whole year. I had to defend my colleague. I took the line that lectures were not by any means an effective form of education and that in fact most of the lectures delivered in Madras colleges had no more educative value than speeches delivered on the floor on the House. Satyamurti took it good humouredly and withdrew his motion.
As a professor in the university I went frequently to Mysore for delivering special lectures at the university and for examining in Economics. In the course of one the three visits to Mysore, I was introduced to barber who used to shave Winston Churchill when he was a young subaltern in the Army at Bangalore. A story that the barber was fond of telling us was that when the regiment was transferred from Bangalore, Winston Churchill gave him a sovereign as present and said – “Sahib going now, but Sahib coming back burra sahib”.
Speaking of Winston Churchill long after when I was a member of the Indian Cabinet, I remember the Prime Minister telling us on his return from a Prime Ministers' Conference in London that Winston Churchill was quite surprised when India having proclaimed herself a Republic was prepared to remain within the commonwealth. So Churchill was anxious to meet Jawaharlal Nehru, whom he had never met before and a meeting was arranged Churchill’s first remark to Nehru was – “I look upon India as a friend come back to us from the dead”.
I did five years of professorial work and then went as a member of the Tariff Board. One of mu earliest enquiries was an enquiry into coal. Sir Alexander Murray, who was then Head of Jardine, Skinner, was one of the people who examined. Something that he said in his evidence has stuck in my mind ever since. ‘The trouble with Indian coal’, he said, ‘is that it is not nearly as black as it is painted’. One of the first reports I did as President of the Board was very critically reviewed in the Indian Press. Arthur Moore who was then editor of the statesman reviewed it in a leading article in which he said among other things – “the Indian Tariff Board is fast becoming the serious rival to Hans Andersen in the compounding of the fairy tales”.
I served for the nine years on the Tariff Board and thereafter was appointed Director-General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics. In this capacity I was nominated an official member of the Indian Legislative Assembly. One of the debates I was asked to take part in on behalf of the Government of India was that on the Ottawa Agreement. I tried my best to defend the agreement although with many mental reservations. Satyamurti was the Deputy Leader of the Opposition under Bhulabhi Desai on the Congress benches. Satyamurti as an old pupil of mine said in his speech something to the effect – of course very politely – that he was distressed to hear his old tutor talk such unqualified nonsense. He was followed by Avanashilingam Chettiar, whom also I had taught in Madras and who expressed much the same sentiments about the speech. Sir James Grigg, the Finance Member at the time, was sitting in the front of me in the house. He turned round to me and said – “I say Matthai, it is about time that you got up and apologised to the House for your old Pupils”.
After leaving government service, I served off and on for fifteen years in the House of Tata which I look back on as the period of my life that I enjoyed most. The first Job I did in Tatas was to look after Tata chemical which I did for three years. It was struggling hard in my time but has since recovered splendidly – I have no doubt on the foundations I laid so well and so truly.
Thereafter I was transferred to the Tata Iron & Steel Company. It was thrilling experience to have been in charge of the largest unit of private enterprise in India. Apart of the interest of the work which I did when I was in Tatas, it was a pleasure to work with people who combined zest for work with a sense of humour. You cannot work with Homi Mody as a colleague without feeling that life is every bit worth living.
I spent nearly four years as a Cabinet Minister in the first National Government. It was work which was extremely important but which I regret to say I enjoyed only in parts. The trouble with a Cabinet Minister is that he can never call his time his own. I cannot think of a period of equal length in my life when I did less general reading. In fact the only literature I read consistently was reports of my own speeches which at the time were extremely depressing reading.
When I was minister for Railways, The railways were passing through the worst difficulties of the post partition period and I was the target of a good deal of criticism in Parliament. The Grand Trunk Express then took about double the scheduled time in covering the distance between Delhi and Madras. Shankar’s weekly has a characteristics story about this. Somebody who was disappointed in love and wanted to put an end to his life went and lay in front of the Grand Trunk Express. He waited and waited, but the train won’t come. In the end the poor fellow died of starvation!
I must now bring these rambling reminiscences to a close. Life is great fun and I have a good long innings. I have gone through difficult times but on the whole I look back on the years I have lived with pleasure and gratitude.
Having failed to go to England, I decided to study Law and started work as a junior to one of the leading criminal lawyers in Madras. My first case was a criminal appeal in the Madras High Court from the judgment of a district Court which has sentenced seven persons to transportation for life. Ramaswami Mudaliar who was working in the same Chambers acted jointly with me in this case. We won the case and all the accused were acquitted. But since the fee for the case had already been paid to my senior, neither Mudaliar nor I got anything for it either from the clients or from our senior. The seven accused came to see me later and presented me with a bunch of bananas which was all the remuneration I received for the case. I don’t believe Mudaliar got even this.
After a few years, I decided to leave the legal profession and went to England to study Economics. My tutor at the London School of Economics was Sidney Webb, who was Professor of Public Administration in the University. I enjoyed working under him. He was then at the height of his powers and reputation.
One of my outside interests in London was teaching in a Sunday School. The children were mainly working class boys between ten and twelve years of age. I remember in one of my first classes the boys found it difficult to follow me. So I Asked “what do you think, boys? Am I speaking English or am I speaking my own Indian Language?” quick came the reply. “Alf and Alf Guvnor”. When I was leaving London, the best boy in the class thought it was up to him to say something that would specially please me. So he said “You know, Sir, when you first came here, you were very black. Now, you are getting a little white”.
From London I went to Oxford. A great deal of my work in London and oxford related to agricultural economics. The Madras Government was then thinking of appointing an officer in the Co-operative Department for developing special types of societies. They therefore asked a Madras I.C.S. Officer, a Britisher, who was then working at the Indian Office to interview me. I went from oxford to London one afternoon to see him. The interview lasted nearly an hour during which he did practically all the talking and I hardly had a look-in. I remember going back to oxford feeling I must have made a poor impression on him having had so little to say for myself. I however got the appointment and later while I was Madras, in some context the file regarding my appointment happened to pass through my hand and I saw the letter which was sent to the Madras Government by the officer who interviewed me in London. What he said was this “Matthai is an intelligent young fellow, but like most Indians who have been in England; he is inclined to talk a great deal".
I worked as assistant registrar under a senior British member of I.C.S. who was then registrar of co-operative societies in Madras. A week or so after I joined the Department, he and I had to go on tour to inspection and were travelling in the same railway compartment. In conversation, he called me “Matthai” and I called him “Mr.____”. He suddenly stopped for while and said – Now with regard to vocatives, I call you “Matthai”, and you call me “Sir”. That was my first experience of government service.
I soon left Co-operation and joined the Educational Service combining the Chair of Economics in the Presidency College, Madras, with the corresponding Chair in the University. That was stimulating work. I lectured both at the University and at the college and being then a nominated member of the madras legislative council occasionally made speeches in the Legislature. Satyamurti was then leading the congress opposition. He was an old pupil of mine and our relations were very friendly. I remember during a budget debate, he asked for a reduction of Rs. 100/- in the Education Budget to call attention to the fact that a British professor employed in the Presidency College and delivered only five lectures during the whole year. I had to defend my colleague. I took the line that lectures were not by any means an effective form of education and that in fact most of the lectures delivered in Madras colleges had no more educative value than speeches delivered on the floor on the House. Satyamurti took it good humouredly and withdrew his motion.
As a professor in the university I went frequently to Mysore for delivering special lectures at the university and for examining in Economics. In the course of one the three visits to Mysore, I was introduced to barber who used to shave Winston Churchill when he was a young subaltern in the Army at Bangalore. A story that the barber was fond of telling us was that when the regiment was transferred from Bangalore, Winston Churchill gave him a sovereign as present and said – “Sahib going now, but Sahib coming back burra sahib”.
Speaking of Winston Churchill long after when I was a member of the Indian Cabinet, I remember the Prime Minister telling us on his return from a Prime Ministers' Conference in London that Winston Churchill was quite surprised when India having proclaimed herself a Republic was prepared to remain within the commonwealth. So Churchill was anxious to meet Jawaharlal Nehru, whom he had never met before and a meeting was arranged Churchill’s first remark to Nehru was – “I look upon India as a friend come back to us from the dead”.
I did five years of professorial work and then went as a member of the Tariff Board. One of mu earliest enquiries was an enquiry into coal. Sir Alexander Murray, who was then Head of Jardine, Skinner, was one of the people who examined. Something that he said in his evidence has stuck in my mind ever since. ‘The trouble with Indian coal’, he said, ‘is that it is not nearly as black as it is painted’. One of the first reports I did as President of the Board was very critically reviewed in the Indian Press. Arthur Moore who was then editor of the statesman reviewed it in a leading article in which he said among other things – “the Indian Tariff Board is fast becoming the serious rival to Hans Andersen in the compounding of the fairy tales”.
I served for the nine years on the Tariff Board and thereafter was appointed Director-General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics. In this capacity I was nominated an official member of the Indian Legislative Assembly. One of the debates I was asked to take part in on behalf of the Government of India was that on the Ottawa Agreement. I tried my best to defend the agreement although with many mental reservations. Satyamurti was the Deputy Leader of the Opposition under Bhulabhi Desai on the Congress benches. Satyamurti as an old pupil of mine said in his speech something to the effect – of course very politely – that he was distressed to hear his old tutor talk such unqualified nonsense. He was followed by Avanashilingam Chettiar, whom also I had taught in Madras and who expressed much the same sentiments about the speech. Sir James Grigg, the Finance Member at the time, was sitting in the front of me in the house. He turned round to me and said – “I say Matthai, it is about time that you got up and apologised to the House for your old Pupils”.
After leaving government service, I served off and on for fifteen years in the House of Tata which I look back on as the period of my life that I enjoyed most. The first Job I did in Tatas was to look after Tata chemical which I did for three years. It was struggling hard in my time but has since recovered splendidly – I have no doubt on the foundations I laid so well and so truly.
Thereafter I was transferred to the Tata Iron & Steel Company. It was thrilling experience to have been in charge of the largest unit of private enterprise in India. Apart of the interest of the work which I did when I was in Tatas, it was a pleasure to work with people who combined zest for work with a sense of humour. You cannot work with Homi Mody as a colleague without feeling that life is every bit worth living.
I spent nearly four years as a Cabinet Minister in the first National Government. It was work which was extremely important but which I regret to say I enjoyed only in parts. The trouble with a Cabinet Minister is that he can never call his time his own. I cannot think of a period of equal length in my life when I did less general reading. In fact the only literature I read consistently was reports of my own speeches which at the time were extremely depressing reading.
When I was minister for Railways, The railways were passing through the worst difficulties of the post partition period and I was the target of a good deal of criticism in Parliament. The Grand Trunk Express then took about double the scheduled time in covering the distance between Delhi and Madras. Shankar’s weekly has a characteristics story about this. Somebody who was disappointed in love and wanted to put an end to his life went and lay in front of the Grand Trunk Express. He waited and waited, but the train won’t come. In the end the poor fellow died of starvation!
I must now bring these rambling reminiscences to a close. Life is great fun and I have a good long innings. I have gone through difficult times but on the whole I look back on the years I have lived with pleasure and gratitude.
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