RNK wrote, ‘My father, soon after my birth, was appointed as a deputy collector in Uttar Pradesh, then known as the UP-Civil Service. His father, that is my grandfather, had also held a similar post, having started life as a naib-tahsildar. By the time of his retirement, he had been promoted to deputy collector, which in the atmosphere then prevailing, was regarded as a high pinnacle of achievement.’ In later years, the Kao family lost their roots in Lucknow and made different homes wherever the exigencies of service took the family.
RNK noted, ‘My childhood seems to have been overshadowed by the fact that my father died prematurely at the age 29, when I was five. The result was that my mother became a widow at the age of 25. The passing away of my father at an early age was the tragedy from which my family, which was quite small, did not entirely recover, and it certainly coloured my entire outlook during my childhood days, which was rather cheerless and lonely.’ RNK, still a six-year-old child, was taken to Baroda by his uncle Triloki Nath Kao, who used to run a chemical factory. With short breaks, RNK spent many years of his boyhood in Baroda High school. Naturally, he picked up Gujarati. His uncle brought up a large family, which included three sons and three daughters of his own, along with RNK and his brother. They all lived together. So, he had plenty of playmates in the house itself. However, as his uncle’s business faltered in Baroda, RNK’s mother took the two children to Unnao where her brothers lived. But after a year in Unnao, the family moved to Banaras, where RNK was admitted in the sixth grade in the Theosophical High School at Kamacha.
In Banaras, the family were the tenants of a prominent local citizen called Babu Durga Prasad. RNK recalled, ‘As a child, he seemed to me, in many ways, a kind of a Renaissance man. He was rich, had a deep and abiding interest in Indian classical music and played string instruments with a high degree of virtuosity. He was also a sculptor of sorts and had helped to build a marble relief map of India. In addition to these, he had a hobby of repairing old clocks and I remember that the top floor of his house was full of old clocks, some of which must have been master pieces.’ One does not know—and RNK does not mention it anywhere—of his own interest in fine arts, especially sculpting, was inspired by his short stay in Babu Durga Prasad’s house.
However, after a year of schooling in Banaras, the family moved back to Baroda since RNK’s grandparents were getting on in years. The unsettled and uncertain life in his childhood and the early loss of his father appears to have had a lasting impact on RNK’s life. Moreover, his experiences in school—a majority of them being unpleasant—appear to have shaped RNK’s personality in adulthood, as he himself has recorded in his notes, which is now archived at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML) in New Delhi.3 He wrote, ‘In Baroda, at the beginning, I had a pretty wretched time at school. I did not know the local language. My knowledge of Gujarati was elementary, with the result that all communication with my fellow classmates and other boys had to be in English, which acted as a strong restricting influence. Also, at this stage, my body had grown fat. I remember, when I was 11 or 12 years old, I weighed nearly 120 pounds. This was a subject of ridicule for my classmates on innumerable occasions in the school, apart from being ragged for my name ‘Kao’, which was invariably mispronounced as ‘Cow’. I was also ridiculed for my large body size. The nicknames given to me at school were brown buffalo, sack of potatoes and things like that. I was sensitive about this and tended to withdraw into my own shell, which, I think, laid the foundations of an introspective withdrawn approach to life in general.’
He went on to add, ‘I remember, day after day my mother used to give me money to eat at the school canteen, but I just could not bring myself to go to the canteen and buy it. So, on several occasions, I remember that a servant was sent to accompany me, who used to buy food for me in the restaurant or canteen. I could only eat then. In some ways, this shyness about being seen eating in public has persisted with me, and I am still ill at ease while eating at a wayside restaurant or eating food offered by a street side hawker.’
RNK also acknowledged that his close family had the biggest influence on him. He listed his family members in order of their importance in his life—his mother, his father because of his personality and his amiable nature, his uncle and, finally, his grandparents, particularly his grandmother.
Despite the premature death of his father, RNK—who recorded his memoirs in the late 1970s—appeared to have retained several memories, although very vague, about his father. ‘I have a faint impression, confirmed from some photographs that I saw later, that my father was a large man. He dressed carefully and had the reputation of being extremely neat and clean in his turnout. The earliest remembrance I have is at Mathura, where my father was posted as a deputy collector and we were living in a house on the banks of the Yamuna. One of the earliest impressions that I have about my father is that he was an early riser and I have a mental picture of him shaving by the light of a kerosene lantern.’
However, a painful memory about his father also stayed forever with RNK. ‘He was suffering from some stomach disorder and though he was a large and a powerfully built man, his body dissolved in about three months and he died prematurely. In the last stages of his illness, I remember that though he was posted in a town called Hardoi, he was taken to Lucknow for treatment and we were living in a flat on the first floor. In that flat, I remember to have spent many, many lonely and sad evenings, when I used to be in the verandah watching the people go by in the street below. My father was then dangerously ill; strict silence was enjoined on me and being the only child, I had no playmate. So, there was nothing that I could do except to watch the passing scene in the street below,’ RNK recalled.
Throughout the difficult period of India of the 1920s and the 1930s, the Kao family faced a lot of financial hardships as RNK’s uncle suffered losses in his business time and again. RNK’s fortunes, along with his brother and mother, ebbed and flowed with the state of his uncle’s business. In 1932, RNK’s uncle changed his line of business and became associated with a cement factory, which had been established in Andheri near Bombay4. As the grandparents were dead, the whole family then shifted to Bombay, where they stayed in a bungalow in Santa Cruz. Within a year, however, RNK’s uncle’s fortune suffered another reverse. ‘The establishment at Bombay was broken up. My mother and my aunt went to their respective brothers, my uncle shifted to a small lodging and my cousin and I went to live for one year in a hostel run by the Ramakrishna Mission in Villa Parle, which is a suburb of Bombay,’ RNK wrote.
While at the Ramakrishna Hostel, RNK developed interest in yoga since he felt a strong desire to overcome his obesity. His one-year stay at Ramakrishna Mission deepened this interest. Yoga gradually cured him of obesity. RNK also remembered that during this period, he read, for the first time, some of Swami Vivekananda’s works, particularly his Raja Yoga. The habit of doing yoga that he picked up at Ramakrishna Mission incidentally stayed with RNK till the end of his life.
As the financial position of the family worsened, RNK and his cousin could not continue their studies in Bombay. So, they returned to Uttar Pradesh. Both got admission in the Lucknow University for their bachelor’s degree, with RNK also securing a room in the Mehmoodabad Hostel.
This is where Kao’s life seemed to look up, according to his own recollection. He took up English Literature, Indian History and Persian for his bachelor’s. He decided to specialise in Ancient Indian History. ‘The study of this period of our country’s developments opened up an absolutely new vista before me. It gripped my interest which has, in a manner of speaking, lasted till today, and this further developed into an interest in the critical study of temple architecture and statues. In later years, as a corollary of my interest in statues, I took up clay modelling too. My stay of two years in Lucknow University from where I graduated in 1936, was quite eventful externally, but it marked a new phase in my academic life as for the first time, I discovered that I had some felicity for writing and speaking English, at leas
t at the undergraduate level. This won me encomiums and compliments from my teachers and at the end of my graduation, they encouraged me to join the master’s programme in English Literature at Allahabad University,’ RNK wrote.
In Allahabad, the only luxury RNK had allowed himself was a weekly visit to the cinema, which in those days, with students’ concessions, cost only 9 annas. His mother gave him a monthly allowance of 50. RNK noted that this included 12 as tuition fee, 8 for the hostel room and 30 for living expenses. As he could not even afford a bicycle in those days, most evenings RNK used to either sit in the room and continue to study or go out for a short walk. He had developed some interest in hockey and occasionally played volleyball and basketball. Simultaneously, RNK had started working for competitive exams. He recalled, ‘I was, at that time, working very hard preparing for the competitive examinations. My practice was to get up at 3 AM and work with short breaks throughout the day. The only luxury I allowed myself was about an hour’s bicycle ride (on a borrowed cycle) in the evening, along with a cinema show once a week. In fact, I was so short of money that mostly I skipped the afternoon tea.’
While studying English Literature, RNK recalled, he seemed to have at last found his métier. ‘My weekly visit to the cinema also became a part of the process of absorbing as much English as I could, because invariably I went to watch English movies, and when I use the word ‘English’, it includes those made by MGM and Hollywood. But I remember that in those days, actors and actresses like Greta Garbo, Jennith MacDonald, Fredrik Mash and Robert Tailor made a great impact on my youthful mind.’
About this time, RNK also developed some interest in joining the debates, on various subjects, which used to be held at Allahabad University. Gradually, somewhat to his own surprise, RNK discovered that he had the ability to put across his views cogently. ‘The high watermark of my achievement was in 1939, when at the inter-University debate in Allahabad, I secured the first prize,’ RNK wrote.
In 1938, RNK completed his master’s degree in English Literature, securing the first position in the university. ‘My recollection is that this was a very exciting moment for me, and I had a heady feeling with the stimulation of a solid achievement,’ RNK noted. After all, he had won two gold medals for standing first in class. ‘It was one of the proudest moments of my life. And for some reason, when I went up to the dais to receive the medal, the thought of my dead grandmother was uppermost in my mind. This was so, because she had exercised a great influence on my mind in my childhood. I recall endless number of evenings when I used to sit along with her other grandchildren by her bedside and listen to the stories about ancient heroes and great warriors, whose exploits have been enumerated in our scriptures, with which she regaled us,’ RNK recalled.
The success of his MA seemed sweeter for Kao since two years prior to that, his mother had asked him to find a job as most of the money that his late father had left behind had been exhausted. RNK recalled that he argued vigorously with his mother and insisted in obtaining a post-graduate degree. As he remembered, ‘This suggestion (of taking up a job) I firmly rejected because I argued with my mother that a couple of thousand rupees or a little more would not see me through my life, that those were the important years and that it would be best if I invested this money by studying further. In the event, this proved to be the correct decision, though, of course, at that time, it was a bit of a plunge in the dark, because after I had done my MA and nearly finished my two years of law, all that was left between me and the wolf was 500. So, it was, in some ways, a miracle that I managed to get into the Indian Police, and that happened just before I had finished my law (final) lecture classes. But that is another story.’
It was during his stint at the Law College when RNK got his first glimpse of Jawaharlal Nehru. As he wrote, ‘The first time I saw Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was, I think, in 1936, when the plenary session of the INC was being held at Lucknow. He had probably just returned from Europe after Kamala Nehru’s death. And my recollection is that I was much impressed with his sensitive, vibrant face. After that, I remember to have had two or three meetings with Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in Allahabad in connection with the affairs of the students’ union of the university there. While I was pursuing law, I got somewhat deeply involved with the affairs of the Allahabad University Students’ Union and campaigned vigorously in favour of a friend of mine, called Billu Bhatnagar, who was finally elected as the president of the University Union.’ As a reward, for his vigorous campaigning, RNK was nominated to the Executive Committee of the Students’ Union.
Another distinct recollection that RNK has about his student days in Law College was of communal politics that was practiced even at the level of students’ union. He recalled, ‘While serving as a member of the Executive Committee, I got my first taste of the manner in which communal politics led to aberrations and endless discussions involving people, who otherwise seemed perfectly rational and normal. One of the questions being considered by the Executive Committee at that time was whether the National Flag should be hoisted over the union building or not. This was strongly opposed by a representative of the Muslim hostel, who said that either there should be no flag or that if the INC flag was hoisted, so should the Muslim League flag side by side. All of us argued vehemently that while the Congress flag was the National Flag, representing all communities in India, the Muslim League could not claim that its flag represented anyone else other than its Muslim supporters.’
Incidentally, the person who then represented the Muslim hostel in these debates was a person called Gufran. In Kao’s memory, he was a tall, gangling youth with a broad face. ‘My impression is that his family belongs from Azamgarh. Many years later, I learnt that his elder brother, Brig Usman, became a war hero, when in 1947 he was killed in Kashmir, fighting the Pakistan raiders. Our friend, Gurfan, himself had later joined the Army and elected to stay on in India. When I met him next, he was a Lt. Col and was working as an Assistant Military Secretary to the President,’ Kao wrote. Brig Mohammad Usman, incidentally, commanded the 50 Para Brigade and is known as the Sher of Nowshera for his heroic exploits to defend Nowshera in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in 1947. He was awarded India’s second highest gallantry award, the Maha Vir Chakra, posthumously.
By 1939, RNK finished his first year in law. Kao was 21 and could now appear for the competitive exams to join the Indian Police (IP), the forerunner of the current Indian Police Service (IPS). This is where RNK’s life took a turn for the better.
1 Present-day Prayagraj.
2 Present-day Varanasi.
3 R.N. Kao papers, serial No. 2, NMML, New Delhi.
4 Present-day Mumbai.
TWO
Joining the IP, Shifting to IB
In the summer of 1939, RNK, having passed the written exam for entering the IP, was called for an interview. In those days, the interviews (also known as viva voce) used to be conducted by the Federal Public Service Commission Board. Kao distinctly remembered that the interview was held in the Council House of the UP-Government Secretariat in Lucknow.
The chairman of the board was an Englishman. According to his recollection, there were two or three Indian members on the board, one of whom was Khan Bahadur Mohammed Zakki, a retired government advocate from Gorakhpur. The other one was Jagan Prasad Rawat. The interview went off well, although there were a couple of amusing moments during the interaction with the interview board.
To cut a long story short, RNK managed to get into the IP when the results were declared in March 1940. By his own admission, Kao was lucky to get into the IP that year. ‘I managed to get in just by the skin of my teeth because initially from UP, they were going to take only two candidates. Later, it was discovered that because of the war [Second World War], not enough recruits for the IP were available in India. So, they decided to take one more man and I managed to get in,’ RNK noted years later.
The family was elated. For his mother, it was perhaps the greatest day in her largely joyless life after her hus
band had passed away when she was just 25. ‘She had pinned all her hopes on me, and I had finally made my mark although in school, I had been rather an indifferent student. So, her joy knew no bounds, and I must mention that my younger brother was also transported with joy at the fact that I had finally made good,’ Kao recalled.
Here, it is worth noting the role played by RNK’s mother in moulding the two brothers, and RNK’s bond with his younger brother. He credits his mother for motivating the two siblings to succeed in life since she, as a young widow, had nothing much to look forward to except to see her children do well in life. ‘She exercised a strict vigilance over me and also enforced very strict discipline. She was not above chastising me physically on several occasions … (yet) my mother was also the best mother that anyone could hope to have. She was doting and gave me unstinted love and made her twosome the centre of her existence. To this date, I recall her attitude and love, the innumerable nights when she kept awake fanning me in the hot, sultry weather of Baroda. Her ordeal had become more exact on account of the fact that I had frequent bouts of malaria and dysentery, which necessitated a strict diet and maintenance of a tight regimen,’ Kao recalled years after she had passed away.
RNK also doted on his brother. His brother, Shyam Sunder Nath Kao, was born after their father had passed away. ‘I should mention that my younger brother is six years junior to me. Initially, I had come to expect more or less complete monopoly of my mother’s affection, more so after her widowhood. So, my baby brother appeared to me to be my rival for my mother’s attention. This, of course, wore off as I grew older, and today, I think, that my brother and I are good friends and very close to each other. For this, the credit should go entirely to my brother,’ RNK recalled.
R N Kao Page 2