‘A Man for All Seasons’: The yin and yang of KM Panikkar’s life

The public verdict on this man of many parts is hopelessly split. Mention his name in Kerala, and there is a quick nod of acknowledgement for his massive literary abilities in Malayalam that spanned half a century and varying locales — from Patiala to Oxford. In some Indian strategic circles, he is accused of being lulled about China’s Tibet ambitions by one-to-one conversations with Mao, lavish banquets thrown by Zhou Enlai and getting enamoured by his own literary outpourings on China. Others commend his foresight for advocating a maritime steel ring with forward bases to defend India.

Born in a Nair family in a typically verdant green countryside in Travancore, Panikkar often shifted his position in his monumental outpourings. A bulk of his career was spent serving the princely states of Patiala and Bikaner at a time when the sand in the royal hourglass was running out.

Raised when Travancore was on the cusp of change, a young Panikkar was regularly caned and failed in his class again and again. But amidst the daily flow of journalists, writers, intellectuals and social reformers in his home, this recalcitrant youngster would win literary debates and poetry contests.

This yin and yang of Panikkar’s life — from spending two years in London and Paris, where he deeply enjoyed his affairs with European women and had several love interests as per Scotland Yard, to arguing against marriage to them, while also advocating the “Greater India school of thought” that revelled in the Hindu cultural influence in Southeast Asia over 1,500 years — is what gives flesh to the biography.

But what could Panikkar have been if he had not made chance encounters along the way, one wonders. His first essay, at 20, was fortuitously seen by the then diva of Congress, Annie Besant; it gave a leg-up to his literary outpourings. His meeting with CP Ramaswami Aiyar, the Dewan of the powerful Travancore state, landed him decades of service in princely states. His sharing of a voyage back from England with Nehru and his friend PN Haksar got him meaningful assignments in Independent India.

If life could not be more varied, Panikkar also served as editor of Hindustan Times, a salaried informer for Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru on the Vaikom satyagraha and a contributor to the Indus Valley Civilisation by engaging the first true archaeologist, Aurel Stein.

The author, Narayani Basu, began researching the man on finding frequent references to him while working on her book on VP Menon, the brilliant bureaucrat who played a pivotal role in integrating the princely states. As with her book on Menon, this one, on another fellow Malayali, skirts hagiography. Which is why we get a glimpse of both sides of a man who loved being around power centres, and was always eager to involve himself in policymaking.

However, the geopolitical tempests of the time rarely brought success to his exertions, whether in the service of the princes or as India’s Ambassador to China.

Though the delicious, gossipy accounts of widespread debauchery among princes by the likes of Diwan Jarmani Das may be half true, Panikkar’s decades with Patiala and Bikaner bring to the fore the sweat and toil that went into maintaining the status quo in the face of the changes brought by the national movement and churnings within the British political system.

Woven into the narrative are insights into the gradually rising demand for Pakistan, the shenanigans of the princes with the Muslim League and efforts by people like Panikkar to ensure they opted for India.

The 1,000-page book has the leisure to cast light on all aspects of Panikkar’s life. It, however, leaves behind one misgiving. Did the prolonged and complete immersion in post-First World War European ethos cause Panikkar and his band of China experts to inaccurately read and appreciate the brand of thuggish politics and brutal strong-arm tactics practised by Beijing, well hidden by a veneer of sophistication and high culture?

One wonders what would have been the course of our foreign policy if Nehru had mixed brilliant but highly privileged men with those from a subaltern background.

— The reviewer is a senior journalist