CA’s only surviving member recalls its founding moment
TI RU CHEN GO DE( TAMIL NA DU ): For someone who has stepped into their 100th year, Tiruchengode Muthunalli Kaliannan is remarkably willing to hold a conversation, delve into the past and listen deeply to any questions that we have for him.
We meet the oldest surviving member of the Constituent Assembly — tasked with the great responsibility of drafting the Constitution for a newly independent nation — nearly a fortnight after he turned 99. Sacred ash smeared over his forehead and attired in a pearl white dhoti with an angavastram, TM Kaliannan is seated on a large armchair and ready to take a trip down the memory lane.
A member of the Madras Presidency legislature and later of the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly from 1957 to 67, Kaliannan fought his last assembly election in 1980 — which he lost. He also served as a director of the Indian Bank in the 1960s. In 2000, he finally retired, and began to live in with his grandson, a doctor, in his home town of Tiruchengode, which is an overnight journey from Chennai in Tamil Nadu.
But retirement hasn’t slowed him down. Though his mobility is lessened, and he is confined to the living room besides his own bedroom, his appetite remains robust — two idlis for breakfast, rice with sambar and rasam accompanied by buttermilk and boiled vegetables for lunch, dosa for supper. “Nothing prevents me from taking any food that every other takes,” he said.
Born on January 10,1921 at Akkaraipatti village in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal district, he was adopted by his paternal aunt who lived in Kumaramangalam. His cousin was P Subbarayan, was the former Chief Minister of Madras province as well as a member of the Constituent Assembly.
In fact, it was his brother’s departure from the Constituent Assembly in 1949 that gave Kaliannan the chance to join it. After Subbarayan, who later served as a minister in the Nehru cabinet, was appointed as the ambassador to Indonesia, Kaliannan, then only 28, became his replacement from Madras Presidency, with the support of Congress stalwart K Kamaraj.
Like any young intellectual of his time, Kaliannan was a rebel. After finishing his schooling at Tiruchengode, he joined Loyola College, Chennai in the economics stream, but he was rusticated for participating the freedom struggle.
“‘You can’t do whatever you want, [and not] study. I can’t accommodate you anymore,’ the principal told me,” Kaliannan recounted. “I told him, ‘We have come here in the hope of doing what we like [and to] learn’.”
The principal, Father Jerome D’Souza was a Jesuit priest who hailed from Mangalore. He was also the first Indian to occupy that post in the institution, and he clearly held Kaliannan dear despite dismissing him. “He facilitated my joining the prestigious Pachaiyappa’s College nearby so that I could continue my studies,” recalled Kaliannan. The two later brushed shoulders in the Assembly, of which D’Souza was also a member.
Kaliannan recalled Ambedkar’s forceful speeches in the Constituent Assembly debates. But it was D’Souza who egged Kaliannan on to participate in the debates.
“I would contain my urge to participate in the ongoing debates, though I was interested. However, Father Jerome used to encourage me. He would ask me when would I make my speech. Finally, I made a brief speech on Universal Adult Suffrage, supporting Nehru and others,” Kaliannan recalled.
The demand for universal adult suffrage -which meant that every citizen above the legal age should be allowed to vote -- began to be made by the 1920s.
“The Nehru Report of 1928 stated that ‘Every person of either sex who has attained the age of 21, and is not disqualified by law, shall be entitled to vote’... In the years leading up to the setting up of the Constituent Assembly, more Indian historical constitutions like the Gandhian Constitution of Free India of 1946, Ambedkar’s States and Minorities of 1945, and the Sapru Report of 1945, provided for universal adult franchise. In 1946, the Cabinet Mission Plan recognised the principle as the ideal mode of electing members to the Constituent Assembly. But it felt that implementing universal adult franchise would ‘unacceptably delay’ the setting up of the Assembly. And so, Assembly members ended up being elected indirectly – by members of the recently elected provincial legislatures,” Vineeth Krishna of the Centre for Law and Policy Research, writes in an online archive of the Constituent Assembly debates, maintained by the Bengaluru-based legal research organisation.
During the debates, Nehru made impassioned pleas against the colonial practise of separate electorates and weightage, where the franchise was limited and seen as belonging to groups or communities, and often to those with property.
Kaliannan still calls himself a Gandhian, and recalled the time that he and his college friends stayed at Wardha, where Gandhi had set up an ashram in the 1930s.
“It was during my college days, that I and seven others decided to visit Wardha to stay with the Mahatma. We booked our tickets from Chennai. At the ashram, we joined Gandhi for his early morning walks. Then, the prayer meeting where there won’t be any sermon. With the help of Mahadev Desai [Gandhi’s secretary], we had an audience where we asked the permission of the Mahatma to launch a protest against the Vice Chancellor of the Madras University. However, Gandhiji advised us to focus on studies and complete it before plunging into the freedom struggle,” he said.
In 1945, Kaliannan, who belongs to the Gounder community that is classified as part of the Other Backward Classes, became the zamindar of Kasthuripatti and married Parvathi the same year. The couple had two sons and three daughters.
“Sanjeevaiah from Andhra and my father were the youngest among the members. Once, the duo and another young member from Madras presidency, had given a miss to the evening sessions for three days and Rajaji [C. Rajagopalachari] gave them a stern look asking what had happened… and that was enough for them to never bunk the sessions,” his son, TK Rajeswaran, who practices at Madras High Court, said.
Though long retired from public life, Kaliannan stays abreast with current political developments due to his grandson, Senthil. When the conversation veers to the Citizenship Amendment Act, currently in the eye of a political storm with several people around the country protesting against it, he said, “What they will do those identified as intruders? Which country will take them? It is a waste.”
Initially, he was supportive of the abrogation of Article 370, a constitutional provision which provided special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. “I was hopeful that this would help full integration of Jammu and Kashmir with India. For, it was to be a temporary provision. However, the way the Government is going about it is not correct. This might prove tobe counter productive ,” he said.