Bringing Madhu Limaye home

February holds two important daysmdashthe International Mother Language Day which is observed tomorrow and the Marathi Language Day on February 27 Both are public reminders of the need to celebrate and preserve native expression While one promotes multilingualism the other honours the tenth mostspoken IndoAryan language the governmentrsquos declared medium of communication in MaharashtraEvery year this day is an interesting affirmation of the Marathi identity that is central to the statersquos rulersadministrators across political divides For the literati it is an occasion to celebrate the power of the mother tongueFor this columnist the mother tongue connect was brought alive in an ongoing translation project First it was sheer good news that six translatorsreviewers of a certain vintage value are racing against a deadline for the Marathi rendering of select English books of socialist leader Madhu Limaye 19221995 Second the Marathi books are going to be serially published in the birth centenary year of the iconic scholarleader who is mostly recalled for his role in the Janata Party experiment of 1977 Third the project is run under the aegis of two key institutions upholding socialist thoughtmdashKeshav Gore Smarak Trust and Sadhana Prakashan Despite the mounting odds in the pandemic and the existential crises these institutions have devoted energy for intellectual rigourHis books are being translated as part of a project run under the aegis of two key institutions upholding socialist thoughtmdashKeshav Gore Smarak Trust and Sadhana PrakashanLimaye wrote in English as a matter of choice As his son Aniruddha Limaye 67 who is part of the translation team says ldquoBhairsquos Madhu Limayersquos love for languagesmdashEnglish Hindi Marathi and Sanskritmdashwas not laced with any chauvinistic pride He belonged to that league of politicians who wanted to give a place of pride to Indian languages in postIndependent India He was a follower of Ram Manohar Lohia the socialist who articulated the lsquoAngrezi Hataorsquo sloganrdquo But their antiEnglish stance was not directed against the exposure to English books Leaders like Limaye only wanted to reduce the influence of English in administration judiciary and education as that led to the disenfranchisement of underprivileged poor IndiansLimaye cared for a wider national and international readership for his writings particularly for his analytical arguments that were based on political legal and constitutionallysourced texts usually written in EnglishIn a matter of 1112 years 19831995 after he withdrew from active politics he penned a variety of 25odd English books such as Indian National Movement Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru A Historic Partnership Prime Movers Role of the Individual in History Problems of Indiarsquos Foreign Policy Parliament Judiciary and Parties An Electrocardiogram of Politics and so onThe five texts chosen for Marathi translation have a specific purposemdashto reintroduce a forgotten socialist to his home state Although born and raised mainly in Pune Limaye who did his early political work in Khandesh and Mumbai is recalled as the intellectual from Delhi He was also elected to the Lok Sabha from Bihar four times During the 1957 General Election because of the Socialist Partyrsquos the Lohia faction stance to go it alone he was branded as a ldquotraitorrdquo to the cause of the Samyukta Maharashtra Movement When the Janata Government led by Morarji Desai collapsed in mid1979 Limaye was vilified as the partywrecker because he raised the issue of dual membershiployalty of the farRight members of the partymdashpointing to the RSS His books Birth of NonCongressism and Janata Party Experiment in two volumes are therefore worth visiting at this interesting juncture in Maharashtra when an alliance of one farRight and two Centrist outfits govern the state Similarly the other two books Religious Bigotry A Threat to the Ordered State and Contemporary Indian Politics deal with the evolution of divisive politics using religion and caste as tools and shed historical light on several important challenges facing our nationBorn and raised in Pune Limaye did his early political work in Khandesh and Mumbai before moving to Delhi He was elected to the Lok Sabha from Bihar four timesArt critic Amarendra Dhaneshwar 70 who has played a key role in curating the translation showcase feels that the books couldnrsquot have come at a more opportune time Dhaneshwar prides on being Limayersquos mentee since the 1970s Likewise the other translators have their own Limaye lore While Vasanti Phadke and Sunitee Jain were part of Bhairsquos circle since his heydays in the Parliament Vasanti Damle and Satish Kamat have a keen appreciation of Leftleaning socialist movement and literature Phadke 86 had in fact once offered to translate the key treatises That was a while ago when her husband historian Dr YD Phadke broke bread with late Limaye over discussions on Indiarsquos political trajectory While the translators acknowledge the intellectual heaviness of Limayersquos volumes they hasten to add their admiration for the authorrsquos passionate interest in the parliamentary process and his painstaking documentation of momentous phases especially the Emergency and thereafter Jain 75 says Limayersquos words are so carefully crafted that she has to ldquoset aside every chore especially cookingrdquo to scout for the Marathi equivalentsDamle 76 shares a quirky aside about Limayersquos Hindi speeches In 1968 when Damle was doing her MPhil course in Jawaharlal Nehru University Limaye was hosted as one of the speakers on international affairs ldquoHe used chaste Sanskritised Hindi words which put off some of our students who were expecting a more approachable Hindustani idiomrdquo The memory stayed with Damle for long it prevented her from further meeting the parliamentarian in Delhi when he was the cynosure of political action Five decades later as she translates Limayersquos anthology on religious bigotry and institutional decline in India she regrets not having spoken to the visionary whose writings call a spade a spade ldquoHis usages reflect his objective assessment of the nonCongress experiments as well as the Leftliberal worldviewrdquo Curiously many Limaye fansmdashDamle not includedmdashfelt the leaderrsquos Hindi oratory was imbued with ldquowarmthrdquo and ldquothehravrdquoDuring his Portuguese detention in Goa 19551957 Limaye wrote five letters to his little son which were later published as an illustrated Marathi book titled Ladkya Poptas For The Darling Parrot The son is now busy reviewing the English rendering of his fatherrsquos autobiography Atmakatha This is among the few texts which were orginially written in MarathiFor Limaye words weremdashwhether in Hindi English or Marathimdashweapons in the political struggle but they also came to his rescue while he was in prison He used to say that he can be happily jailed for the causes he espoused if assured the company of books particularly the Mahabharata and the Complete Works of Shakespeare Among his regrets was the lack of time to learn a South Indian language and one European language other than English He never had the time or leisure for those endeavoursSumedha RaikarMhatre is a culture columnist in search of the subtext You can reach her at sumedharaikar middaycom