It is unusual for a slim family memoir to evoke a much larger nostalgia for an age we have left behind, in the way that *Rajwati and Her Times succeeds. *Through an endearing portrait of her grandmother, the author Madhu Bhaduri – a teacher of philosophy, a distinguished diplomat and a well-regarded Hindi novelist – recalls an age of social conservatism and catastrophic religious violence that was also one of steady reform, of shared living and inter-community trust. She writes of the idealism of the freedom struggle, of women emerging from the confines of domesticity, and of civility and social responsibility in public engagement.
Madhu was a child living with her extended family in Lahore when in 1947 Partition tore the country apart. Mulkraj, a reputed banker was her great-grandf…
It is unusual for a slim family memoir to evoke a much larger nostalgia for an age we have left behind, in the way that *Rajwati and Her Times succeeds. *Through an endearing portrait of her grandmother, the author Madhu Bhaduri – a teacher of philosophy, a distinguished diplomat and a well-regarded Hindi novelist – recalls an age of social conservatism and catastrophic religious violence that was also one of steady reform, of shared living and inter-community trust. She writes of the idealism of the freedom struggle, of women emerging from the confines of domesticity, and of civility and social responsibility in public engagement.
Madhu was a child living with her extended family in Lahore when in 1947 Partition tore the country apart. Mulkraj, a reputed banker was her great-grandfather who refused to leave Lahore even as the city was tempestuously emptied out of its Hindu and Sikh residents. On the night of and August 14 and 15, when Jawaharlal Nehru in Delhi made his epochal *Tryst with Destiny *address to the Indian nation, Mulkraj died in Lahore, probably of a broken heart.
In the darkness of the night, his son Shivraj and daughter-in-law Rajwati dismantled a door of the house and silently built with it a pyre for his cremation. Theirs was one of the last families that had not fled Lahore. Liaquat Ali, destined to become Pakistan’s first prime minister and a close family friend, smuggled them to the safety of Delhi in his private plane.
Her great-grandfather was deeply influenced by the Arya Samaj: its opposition to idol worship, its support for women’s education but also its downside of antagonism to Muslims. However, he was stubbornly opposed to the division of the country on the basis of religion. In June 1947, Lahore was set on fire. Trainloads of refugees escaping the violence in both directions were slaughtered. His son Shivraj still rejected the counsel even of Nehru, who had told the Punjab Chambers of Commerce and Industry that Lahore was likely to be part of Pakistan so they should shift their factories and businesses to east Punjab. Mulkraj insisted on staying on in Lahore, even as most of the remaining family urged him to shift with them to the safety of that part of the country which would remain in India. Madhu’s grandmother Rajwati and grandfather Shivraj, a secular rationalist, continued in Lahore with their father, even as most friends and families fled. They were among the last to leave the city of their birth, on the private plane of the first prime minister of Pakistan, to build a new life in India.
A prosperous family, the freedom struggle had closely touched their lives in many ways. The great revolutionary Bhagat Singh was born in the house neighbouring that of Madhu’s great-grandmother, and he had played in her lap. Lala Lajpat Rai, a friend of Mulkraj, supported the education of her grandfather Shivraj in America. Raghu, Madhu’s father, after returning to India from his studies in the London School of Economics, joined the Congress Party and, influenced by Mohandas Gandhi, gave up wearing trousers and shirts and replaced these with khadi kurta pyjamas. Much harsher was the fate of another member of the family Balraj, who joined a revolutionary group. Shortly after Rajwati was married and entered her new home, Balraj was arrested for what came to be known as the Lord Hardinge bomb case. The target of the bomb, the viceroy escaped unhurt, but some others were injured. The Lahore High Court punished Balraj with seven years’ imprisonment in the dreaded penal colony in Port Blair in the Andaman Islands. There he suffered torture and isolation, and was released after five years.
Mulkraj raised his children with the teachings of the Arya Samaj, but he still was able to find space for respect for other beliefs and cultures. Shivraj, among his sons, was not religious. He chose to marry Rajwati Seth, from Lucknow. She did not speak Punjabi and was not Arya Samaji. Knowing that the Arya Samaj resolutely opposed idol worship, she hid a locket with Krishna’s image under her clothes. But her husband’s parents were gentle with the newlywed bride’s religious beliefs, as also with her choices of language and dress. Mulkaraj reassured her that she was free to worship in their home in the way she chose. Likewise, she wore her preferred sari to the Punjabi salwar suit, and people who could, conversed with her in Hindi rather than Punjabi.
There was also in wealthy business families respect for those who chose public service over commerce. When Mulkaraj’s younger brother Hansraj spoke to him of his dream of contributing to public education instead of the family’s business, he said he would free him from the responsibility of earning a living, and instead give to him a monthly allowance of forty rupees (which at that time was substantial) so he could pursue his mission unencumbered. This allowed Hansraj to set up a large string of DAV (Dayanand Anglo Vedic) schools and colleges in Punjab, and then in the United Provinces, other northern states, and later even in the Madras Presidency. Years after, Rabindranath Tagore was to dub him Mahatma Hansraj.
The soul of Madhu Bhaduri’s family memoir is accounts of how, even in times when women from privileged families were still expected to live confined to the kitchen and domestic responsibilities, Rajwati Seth still asserted – always with quiet dignity and grace – her agency and choice. Born in Lucknow in 1896, her father, a judge, withstood the social conservatism of the times to send his daughter to a prestigious missionary school. Teaching was in English in the Christian convent school.
Her elder sister was widowed at the age of 16. Rajwati watched with grief the social ostracism that was heaped on her because of her widowhood, that barred her from joining festivities in weddings and festivals like Diwali. It took many years for her father to muster the courage to break social norms to arrange the remarriage of his daughter to a widower.
We saw how Rajwati, married into a Punjabi Arya Samaji family, persisted with her religious beliefs including worshipping a Krishna idol. She would speak of being drawn to the Christian faith along with her devotion to Krishna. The Arya Samaj shared with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh a deep hostility against Muslims, but Rajwati and Shivraj welcomed many Muslim friends to their home. Madhu Bhaduri recalls that many decades later, when she was preparing to leave for her studies in Cambridge University, her mother tried to set these boundaries for her: “Marry anyone except a Muslim”. But her grandmother Rajwati gently took her aside and said, “If you find someone of your choice, don’t hesitate to marry him. Follow your instinct”. It did not matter if he is Muslim, she said. Your parents will ultimately accept him.
Her husband Shivraj encouraged Rajwati to learn to drive a car. Successful as a banker, he established many factories, and set about building his dream house on the upscale Race Course Road in Lahore. He established one of the first production units for electric fans in the country, and proudly told his wife that every room would have a ceiling fan. Until then, fans were large horizontal stretches of cloth or canvas that were manually operated by servants sitting outside the room with a rope. “Why do we need a fan in every room?” she remonstrated with her husband. “ Why can’t the whole family sit together under one fan? What is the need to show off?”
After fleeing Lahore in 1947, the family moved into a large house in civil lines in Rajpur Road in Delhi. At that time, there were 16 families uprooted from Pakistan sharing that house. The family thrived, but as she grew older she wanted to give up her life of luxury. She found solace and meaning in an ashram in Rishikesh on the banks of the Ganga. She lived there in a small austere room. Her husband would visit her from time to time, but missed non-vegetarian food and the conveniences of his city life. Madhu and her friends would also visit her. One of them remarked that when Rajwati spoke, it sounded like a shower of flowers.
During Madhu’s postings as a diplomat to distant countries – Vietnam and Mexico – her grandmother would regularly write to her, and to Madhu’s two young daughters.
The last time that Madhu met her was when she returned to Delhi for a brief vacation in 1984, shortly after the massacre of Sikhs in the national capital in unhinged retribution for prime minister Indira Gandhi’s assasination. Rajwati was deeply saddened. “Religion does not teach us violence", she said, shaking her head. She had borne witness to this violence many years earlier, in Lahore. And now, once again.
In spare and chiselled prose, Madhu Bhaduri, through her portrait of this remarkable woman, spans a century of monumental social transformation in India. She evokes through her writing the slow chiselling away of social conservatism that had denied women their rights of education, remarriage and agency. She calls forth a time of idealism and public service in the struggle for India’s freedom. She elicits a way of living in which deep religious faith did not exclude respect for other beliefs and faiths.
In these many ways, Rajwati’s story becomes a fable for our troubled times.
*Harsh Mander is a peace and justice worker, writer, teacher who leads the Karwan e Mohabbat, a people’s campaign to fight hate with radical love and solidarity. He teaches part-time at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, and has authored many books, including Partitions of the Heart, *Fatal Accidents of Birth and Looking Away.
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