The name Sarojini Varadappan will ring no bells for most readers of this column today. But it will ring resoundingly for those few seniors who remember her for her gentle demeanour and innate goodness. Equally for an inner life made of the strongest alloys of custom and modernity, tradition and contemporaneity. And of a no-nonsenseness that made it impossible for anyone to mess with her.
Daughter of the veteran Congressman M Bhaktavatsalam, who was a minister in the Rajaji and Kamaraj Cabinets and Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu from 1963 to 1967, Sarojini belonged to the Tamil elite by virtue of descent. She also belonged simultaneously to another aristocracy by virtue of something else: her very own virtuousness. This is the aristocracy of those who choose being good over being famous or powerful and sleep soundly—while the other kind who, for fear of losing pelf and privilege, end up losing sleep.
Not that she did not have it in her to be in power.Oh yes, she did. But destiny made her Sarojini. Simply, Sarojini. This would not have been easy for one who was named by her father after the only-one-such Sarojini Naidu. And one who grew up with politics for nutriment.
This reflection on her has been prompted by an anecdote with much meaning for us today shared with me by her nephew U Venkatesh, Venky to his friends. But before I share the anecdote with readers after obtaining his permission, I would like to say what I recall of her.
Sarojini Varadappan was married to a generous and affable cousin of hers from an agriculturist background. The marriage had followed the canons of tradition and community, but the married couple trod their own paths. He looked the free spirit that he was; she looked the acme of propriety, which she was.
She groomed her centre-parted greying hair very neatly, adorning it with malli or jasmine as custom, and wore a pottu or bindi of red kumkum, which was neither apologetically small nor audaciously large, until the loss of her husband changed the ensemble. Her sari was always the finest Kanjeevaram, but not weighed under excessive brocade. She wore her jewellery with moderation, unlike those who deck themselves up so much that their jewellery seems to be wearing them.
There was, in her bespectacled face, a detached attachment to private values and public causes. Detached because it was free of personal agenda. In her services to organisations like the Indian Red Cross and the Women’s India Association there was an ambitious commitment to their objectives and a total absence of personal ambition.
Whenever I saw her—which was not all that often, but was memorable whenever I did—I thought I detected, somewhere in her strikingly impressive face, a hint of some deep, almost sad, contemplation. I could never figure out what that was about.
To come to the anecdote, in Venky’s words, in which ‘MB’ refers to M Bhaktavatsalam and ‘CNA’ to C N Annadurai, DMK’s pre-eminent leader who strode to power in 1967 defeating the Congress: “After the 1967 elections, MB resigned and CNA assumed office. As per the norm, the bureaucrat concerned promptly sent people to remove all the [official] furniture in MB’s house. Typical of MB, he said, let them take it. My aunt Sarojini Varadappan placed a call to the CM’s office and told CNA directly, ‘Sir, they are removing all the furniture right away. It would be helpful if they can wait a while till we procure some basic furniture.’”
“I understand that CNA lost his temper, promptly apologised to Sarojini and asked her to convey his profound apologies to MB. He summoned the bureaucrat who had approved the order and severely reprimanded him, warning that one more transgression like it would lead to his dismissal and instructing him to immediately stop the undignified act and put back all the furniture that had been removed.”
It is pertinent to recall that when his party was routed in the 1967 elections at the hands of the DMK, Bhaktavatsalam had famously likened the victorious party to a “virus” spreading in the state. CNA did not allow that to stop him from responding the way he did to Sarojini’s phone call. This was Sarojini in action—in her calm, measured but emphatic way. She and CNA both emerged from the episode with great dignity. Where has that courtesy between political opponents gone—a basic etiquette overcoming partisan positions?
Sarojini Varadappan was never selected by her party, the Indian National Congress, for a parliamentary seat. She would have brought stature to either House. She had everything a CV should have for that position. But CVs apart, Indian politics responds to something that may be called NV: nuisance value. Sarojini Varadappan altogether lacked NV.
In 2009, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan. I was serving as Governor in West Bengal, and like other Governors, was invited to the investiture. Providentially, I happened to be seated next to Sarojini Varadappan’s niece, Jayanthi Natarajan, the Congress leader.
As Sarojini moved towards the President’s dais to receive the medallion and parchment, I found myself saying to Jayanthi, “She should have been giving, not receiving the decoration.” I meant it then, I believe it now. I do not say this in any way to diminish the then incumbent, Pratibha Patil. But by any yardstick, Sarojini Varadappan had everything going in her to be a wonderful first woman President of India. And if she had been a Governor in 2007, when Governor Pratibha Patil was selected for the honour, she could well have become President.
Sarojini Varadappan would have been 105 this month. Would she have been a happy person? I mentioned a streak of contemplative sadness. She would have been sad about many things today, but mostly about the vanishing of decency in public life, of plain goodness as opposed to smartness. And the daily spectacle of abuses being hurled, apologies demanded, counter apologies demanded, defamation being alleged, denied, re-asserted. I can imagine her putting her hands to her ears and saying: “What have we done to deserve this?”
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Kaapi, Kaapi, Kaapi / Gopalkrishna Gandhi
Former Governor of West Bengal and Bihar