The Modern Review/Volume 38/Number 4/"Ajax" and "The Modern Review"
“Ajax” and “The Modern Review”
“Ajax” has written an article in the September number of the Calcutta Review in reply to our remarks on his article in the August number of the same Review. He has cast aspersions on us for which he wishes us to seek “legal redress.” We do not consider it necessary to gratify this desire of his for cheap notoriety and “martyrdom”. We hope he will excuse us for our inability to oblige him. We will not take further notice of the personalities he indulges in. But as regards the facts mentioned by him we will make a few remarks on them, as he says they are facts.
With regard to his use of the editorial “We,” he observes that his “article was originally intended for the editorial columns of the Calcutta Review, but as the Board of Editors had no time to examine it, it was published as a contributed article. Lack of time did not permit any change in the heading or language of the article.” He also adds that “Dr. Stephen deliberately excluded it from the editorial pages”. “Ajax” mentions these facts only now, but there is no difficulty in accepting this explanation as on the whole accurate, though we do not understand why even the heading could not be changed for want of time, consisting as it did only of two words. This part of the explanation is clearly inadmissible.
Preposterously enough, “Ajax” complains that we held Dr. Stephen responsible for his (“Ajax”’s) article, forgetting that we wrote: “it would not be unfair, following his (“Ajax ’s) example, to hold Dr. Henry Stephen responsible for his views.” This we said because “Ajax” omitted the initials of our contributors in quoting from The Modern Review, thus conveying the impression that the extracts were all from the editor's writings.
As regards the charge of abruptly closing controversies brought against us, to the best of our recollection we have never refused the right of one reply to any person who was entitled to send us one, but we have had to use our discretion in allowing or not allowing further discussion; because ours is a monthly and no controversy should generally be kept up in it for month after month. Sometimes we have allowed further discussion, sometimes we have not. Our critics are at liberty to hold and say that we stop further discussion in cases where our case is weak, though, to the best of our knowledge that is not the true reason. Editors have very often to reject or curtail manuscripts for good reasons. If we returned any manuscript of Dr. Surendranath Sen, it must have been for some valid reason, which we do not at present remember. Some persons believe in the bona fides of some editors, others do not. We do not complain that we do not possess the confidence of everybody.
Dr. Nareshchandra Sen Gupta’s criticism was curtailed, but no argument of his was omitted. No editor is bound to print things which are not to the point. Whenever any contribution is curtailed, editors have, of course, to face the possible charge of having suppressed a most vital portion of it. Nevertheless they must do their duty.
In the case of the two replies given by us in Manasi, mentioned by the writer, we were in some doubt owing to some special circumstance whether we had a right to send a second reply. So we wrote to the Editor of the Manasi for his opinion. As he decided in our favour, we sent him the second reply. To that there was a second rejoinder by our critic in which he, as far as we remember, brought up some new points to which consequently we replied in Prabasi.
Regarding the charge that The Modern Review suffers from lack of “editorial policy” we can only say that we care only for truth and principles, not ‘policy’, and that we try always to decide what ought to be said, not with reference to what we may have written before, but in the light of the knowledge and experience we possess at the time of writing. We are not guided by any mechanical adherence to what is regarded as consistency, by regard for truth and principles.
As for the charge that we gave J. C. G. a mask against his will, the fact is we did not give him any pseudonym, which is what we meant by a mask. We simply used his initials, used by the correspondent of The Modern Review whom he criticised. J. C. G. did indeed give his full name and address. These we did not publish, but there was no “sinister motive” in keeping them unpublished. The motive was quite good.
“Ajax” declares that he has assumed his mask “for a little fun and amusement”. His notions of fun and amusement may not coincide with those of others at whose expense he wishes to amuse himself. Some consider mud-slinging great fun. But we have no objection to give him credit for truthfulness in this matter. Only, if he believes it is merely fun to call people liars, he should not on his part lose his balance at being called a masked man; as, to quote his words, “masks do not necessarily hide sinister motives,” though people’s ideas of what is sinister may differ.
Just as doing good by stealth is not bad but good, though stealth for doing wrong is bad, so to mask oneself for a good purpose, i.e, to use a pseudonym for a good purpose, is not bad. But when one’s motive for masking oneself is bad, one takes offence at being called a masked man; otherwise not.
When we repeatedly asserted unchallenged that Col. Ranking got Rs. 500 a month from the University of Calcutta for doing no lecturing or other work, it ought to have been plain to men with ordinary intelligence that we did not refer to what he might or might not have done at Oxford before he was employed by the Calcutta University.
With conspicuous good taste and sound logic “Ajax” exclaims :
“It is an absolute lie to say that he did no lecture work. His lecture hours were not shown in the time-table because he did not stay in India during the summer months.”
So at long last there is here at least the admission that his lecture hours were not shown in the time-table! And yet if an outsider, not in the secrets of the University, concludes therefrom that the Colonel did no lecturing work, the conclusion must be an absolute lie!
Outsiders like ourselves could derive their information regarding the work done by lecturers only from the printed reports of the postgraduate departments. The report which we consulted related to the work of a whole year, not merely to the work done during “the summer months”, whatever that may mean. That report did not mention any lecturing or other work done by Colonel Ranking, even during the winter months; nor was there the reason mentioned that his lecture hours were not given because he spent his summers outside India. We, therefore, rightly concluded that he got Rs. 500 a month for doing nothing. Besides, none of the teachers lecture during what Calcutta people call the summer months, these being vacation months; yet the lecture hours of most of them and the other work done by them are mentioned in the reports. Therefore “Ajax’s” reply is unconvincing and absurd. In fact, it supports our statement.
To our statement that these questions were asked more than once in our previous issues without eliciting any reply, “Ajax” replies:—
“The reason however is very simple. Babu Ramananda often refused to publish the contradictions sent to his journal, and there is no wonder that the defenders of the University did not care to waste their time in writing contradiction which they feared would not be published.”
An utterly ridiculous reason this. “Ajax” himself states that the reason why the University found it necessary to have an organ of its own was to counteract our alleged mischievous activity. Why then did not that organ ever before attempt even a belated reply to this particular charge?
Assuming it to be true, which it is not, that we “often refused to publish the contradictions sent to” us, The Modern Review never was the only journal in Calcutta or in the country for publishing contradictions. There have been plenty of other journals. And in some of them so-called contradictions of some statements made in our monthlies have appeared. But in none had our criticism of paying Rs. 500 per mensem to Colonel Ranking been ere now challenged. Even the bulkiest report published by a University Committee to cloud the real issues, which attempted indirectly to meet some of our criticisms, was silent on this point.
Why?
And why does not even the redoubtable “Ajax” try even now to explain away the fact of the vast majority of matriculates passing in the first division?
“Ajax” “still repeats” that the Minutes are available in the market.
We are sorry he has not learnt by rote any other reply. He is not a gramophone.
The Minutes may have been (or may soon be) offered for sale for aught we know, after the publication of our last September issue, just to prove that we were wrong. The Minutes may hereafter even be included in the big price list of University publications. But why were they not mentioned in it before? Why did not the Registrar refer us to the “market” in his reply? We offered to pay for them. And why did not the Registrar mention even one of the many things which “Ajax” has said in his two replies on this point?
According to “Ajax,” the Statesman secured a copy of the Report before it was released by the senate “by its superior journalistic enterprise.” It is not clear why other journals, including those “friendly” to the University, could not have got it by the same sort of enterprise. The writer asks us to place before the public an iota of evidence that any editor got this report from anybody connected with the University before it was made public property. As we do not maintain a corps of detectives in our service, we are sorry we are unable to oblige “Ajax”. But he will, we hope, admit that the Statesman did not manufacture its copy of the report, and that it got if either from some University Press employee, or from some University office employee, or from some Fellow. Now these persons are all “connected” with the University.
When we wrote that some “friendly” paper which had published extracts from the Post-graduate Reorganisation Report, did not say that their extracts were taken from the Statesman, we simply wanted to suggest that they also had secured copies of it by “superior journalistic enterprise”, which does not exclude “friendliness” to the University. Therefore the sarcastic fling at Prabasi is quite irrelevant and need not be discussed.
“Ajax” wonders how we could lay our hands on some back numbers of the Calcutta Review though we wrote at a distance from our library. He need not be surprised. We found the numbers in the library at Santiniketan, where we were and are staying.
The critic admits that Prabasi did not mention M. K. G by name as one of the abler teachers of the University, which was our contention, but says he was entitled to draw the inference which he did. We do not question his right to draw any inference he chooses to; we only deny the inference.
He observes:—
“It is really amusing that Babu Ramananda claims credit for making known the achievement of the abler teachers of the University”.
Not “Babu Ramananda” personally but Prabasi and The Modern Review which he edits.
We referred to this side of our journalistic activity not to claim any credit, but merely to counteract the wrong impression sought to be produced by “Ajax’s” false and mischievous allegation that we are “never tired of proclaiming the inefficiency of our [Calcutta University’s] teachers.”
The critic admits that only two cartoons and only one serial story were published in the Calcutta Review. But at first he wanted to produce a different impression by giving only a list of distinguished contributors of articles of academic importance. Naturally he does not say to how many ordinary serials combined this single one was equal in length. Nor does he mention the other serial stories in verse or in dramatic form.
He leaves certain things to be judged by his readers. That is distinctly good of him.
There are some facts, observations or arguments in our last month’s note on the critic’s article, e.g., relating to non-publication of expenditure on the Calcutta Review, supply of unpublished records to a “friendly” organ, etc., which he has discreetly avoided facing. We will not however tire our readers’ patience by repeating them.