In the so-called post-modern age, the genre of biography seems to have languished to a point where it is not particularly far from dying a natural death. As historians and social scientists increasingly subscribe to the view that large, amorphous social forces shape human behaviour more than a handful of individuals, biographical treatments of individuals who were previously considered to have given direction to social forces have lost their sheen. That loss is tragic, because a good biography tends to embody social forces and factors—it is perfectly possible to recapture a bygone era in all its dimensions through the agency of the stories of people who negotiated such forces. Indian history in particular stands badly in need of intellectually rich and insightful biographies.
There are countless protagonists from across the ages in Indian history whose lives remain to be written with any degree of authority—the Mudaliar brothers being two such. Growing up in colonial Madras Presidency, the Mudaliar brothers were educated in the municipal school at Kurnool before they joined the Madras Christian College for higher education. Thereafter, Ramaswami Mudaliar went into law, joined the Justice Party (at a time it rivalled the Indian National Congress in the Presidency) and championed the cause of the downtrodden. Acquiring considerable eminence in his political career, he went on to represent JP at the two Round Table Conferences in the 1930s, deliberating over the manner and time of devolution of power to the Government of India. He represented the JP at the Central Assembly from 1937 and made noticeable contribution as the Commerce, Industry and Supply member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council. In 1942, he was invited to join Churchill’s war cabinet, and happened to be a member of the delegation to San Francisco, deliberating over the shape of the post-war international organisation of UNO. In independent India, he went on to serve as a member of the Rajya Sabha for two terms, and was involved with the foundation of Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), before he retired from politics and served as Vice-Chancellor of Travancore University.
His twin brother Lakshmanswami followed a somewhat different trajectory into the world of education. Taking up medicine, he became a renowned gynecologist and authored one of the defining texts on obstetrics. He later served as the Superintendent of Government Maternity Hospital in Madras, before becoming the first Indian Principal of Madras Medical College. In 1942, when his brother was in the Viceroy’s Executive Council, resisting the deportation of Gandhi to South Africa, Lakshmanswami became the Vice-Chancellor of Madras University —a position he held for a record twenty-seven years. Lakshmanswami, like his brother, was associated with the foundation of CSIR, and was instrumental in setting up a number of other institutions for the study of science, including the IIT at Madras. In recognition of his prominent role in the field of education, Lakshmanswami was made a member at the Madras Legislative Council.
The author of the volume under review deserves praise for having taken on himself the task of writing a biographical account of the lives of the Mudaliar brothers. The brothers made an important contribution to the process of transition from colonial to post-colonial India. This is an era that remains to be properly documented through the lives of people other than the supposedly principal protagonists of the freedom struggle and of independent India.