For a life that could possibly be best described as eventful, a slim memoir can often run out of breath in reliving its sweep. This sense of life outpacing memory isn't surprising for the Oxford-educated tribal leader from the Chotanagpur plateau in Jharkhand (then in undivided Bihar), who went on to not only lead the Indian hockey team to an Olympic gold but also became the voice of the tribals in the Constituent Assembly and one of the key figures of the Jharkhand movement. It isn’t clear what drove Munda to pen the 180-page memoir on a sea voyage to Europe in 1969, only a year before he passed away. Even if it was the tedium of the long journey, his retelling of his life and times has left a historical repository.
Almost five decades after it was written, and two decades after it was first published, the out-of-print book has found a new life with the efforts of publishing house Navayana. The recently published edition has given Munda’s recollections an orderly frame, flow and context. In doing so, the publishers have also traced the journey of the manuscript from the obscurity of academic references to publication for general readership.
In its essence, Munda’s life doesn’t fit in a conventional mould. First, the relatively better known, and less riveting, aspect was his public life – not far from public glare. In the vortex of identity assertion, his eloquence as a tribal member of the Constituent Assembly is now well-documented by contemporary historians. Among the strands often holding that memory particularly are his memorable speech on the Objectives Resolution in December 1946, and his critique of the idea of prohibition in 1949.
Singh extended his appeal as a voice against the interference, and even exploitation, by the dikus (outsiders), by his political programme of demanding separate statehood for Jharkhand. This, however, was marked by vagaries and visible compromises of party politics, and its denouement being rather expedient – merger of his Jharkhand Party with the Congress, and later his second wife arguably becoming the prime mover as well as face of his brand of politics at the centre.
But, it’s his personal arc which has the imprint of dramatic mobility. In the 1920s, his journey from a young boy studying at St. Paul’s in Ranchi to Oxford to study and excel in sports, while embracing Christianity and the lifelong support of Canon FW Cosgrave, seems a tale of Jaipal finding himself at the right place, at the right time.
How representative does that make his story of the possibilities of millions of tribals? Perhaps this is more an exceptional story, underpinned by opportunities that only luck could have brought to a poor tribal in south Bihar in colonial India. It isn’t much different from what Anand Teltumbde’s recent biography of Dr BR Ambekar says about the luck Ambedkar, who, like Munda, hailed from a marginalised background, had in his access to foreign education. There is, however, where similarities between the two should end. After his return from England, and subsequent corporate career in colonial Calcutta, Jaipal Singh Munda discovered politics by accident, seemingly less by conviction. But, that doesn’t take away the abundance of talent and toil he displayed by excelling in hockey, as well as studying hard enough to get into the coveted Indian Civil Service (ICS), only to sacrifice the latter for having his shot at glory as a hockey Olympian.
Jaipal’s reminiscences are sometimes evocative, sometimes employed to keep the personal chronicle moving. His penchant for good life isn’t much concealed, nor is his penchant for rubbing shoulders with the social elite, something Stan Lourduswamy also notes in his introduction. In fact, a considerable part of the book recalls his encounters with the people from the charmed circle of social, cultural and political life – whether it's in England or other European countries, embassies, Africa, Calcutta, or later, in Delhi, Patna or Ranchi. The paradox of Jharkhand's beloved ‘Marang Gomke’, “Big Chief” (interchangeably ‘great leader”) finding the company of the who’s who of different power centres so alluring comes across starkly in his recounting.
Between these usual sprinklings of “I met him” and “I dined with them”, Jaipal also leaves valuable anthropological notes on his pages. His description of the tribal marriage ceremony and rituals is particularly significant for lucid explanation without doing away with relevant detail. On a different note, his insider’s view of tribal political groups is an important note on the stream of “history from below” that subaltern historians dwell on while studying the anti-colonial struggle, as distinct from mainstream politics of the Congress-led national movement. To add to that, his brief take on the sports administration in the formative years of post-Independent India and the his involvement in getting MPs, including PM Jawaharlal Nehru, to play exhibition matches, is a riveting piece of cultural note on the sporting scene of the country as a newly independent nation.
Given the fact that the writer probably didn’t intend to publish the memoir, the book gets episodic in narration, rather being thematic. That’s understandable, though the chronological flow isn’t abandoned. The one casualty, however, is that writing skims across the surface of events and characters, without recounting and examining them in detail. This leaves the book with a fleeting sense of reconstruction of times, and many times, devoid of context, despite the publishers helping with useful footnotes.
Warts and all, Lo Bir Sendra, is as much a significant feat of biblio-forensics in its attempt to register the contextual frame of the work as much as it's an important adjunct to historical memory. In reliving his life and times on a casually written memoir on a long sea journey, Jaipal Singh Munda has left a historical register to reimagine the journey of a fascinating figure in the iconography of tribal politics in modern India.
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