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MONG the eminent Indians of to-day Sir Sankaran Nair easily holds a high place. His name has been familiar throughout India for over twenty years in connection with different fields of public work. As a successful lawyer, an ardent social reformer, as judge, as politician and educationist, Sir Sankaran Nair has made his mark for over a generation. In fact, he is the foremost among the sons of Malabar, whose efforts in the direction of social amelioration are so well known. In other parts of India as well, his acknowledged merits, his outspokenness and his courage have won for him a measure of respect which will stand him in good stead in the days that are ahead of him. Being the third Indian to be raised to the dignity of a Councillor in the Viceroy's Executive Council, as the responsible officer of Education Minister to the Government of India, Sir Sankaran Nair has arrested considerable attention in recent times and his career is watched by his countrymen with eager interest. His record of public life and his long association and participation with the most progressive school of Indian political thought, as embodied in the Indian National Congress, augur well for him, and everybody looks forward to his applying the fruits of his experience to the realization of the aspirations of his countrymen. His decided convictions and inveterate habits of mind may not altogether be deterrent factors in his characteristics; for he may yet prove, in the words of Lord Pentland, "not only a wise Councillor but a man of the most progressive and public spirited instincts."

EARLY LIFE.

Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair was born on the 11th July in the year of the great Sepoy Mutiny, 1857, in the District of Malabar. His father was a Tahsildar-at that time an official of no little consequence-and his grandfather had held the Sheristadarship of the Collector's office. Sankaran Nair passed with credit through the Secondary and High School classes at Cannanore and Calicut, and stood first in the Presidency in the Matriculation. In 1875,

Sankaran Nair joined the Presidency College then under the guida. ce of two such celebrated educationists as Thompson and Porter. In passing the Bachelor of Arts Examination he won the English and History prizes and obtained the distinction of winning the Elphinstone prize. Sankaran Nair had a decided leaning to the study of History, Biography and Economics. He has been an omnivorous reader and his

general knowledge covers a wide range. To be thorough is one of Sankaran Nair's traits of character, and he wished, after taking his B. A. degree, to qualify himself for the Bar instead of entering Government service, stimulated perhaps by the phenomenal success of Indians as Vakils and the European Barristers-at-Law of that period, prominent among whom was the late Mr. (subsequently) Sir H. H. Sheppard. Declining, therefore, to accept a good position in the Educational Department, or a clerkship in the Board of Revenue Office, Sankaran Nair enrolled himself as a student in the Law College and passed his B. L. Examination being first in the Presidency in 1879. He then apprenticed himself under Mr. H. H. Sheppard for a year, and in 1880 was enrolled as a Vakil of the High Court of Madras.

CAREER AT THE BAR.

Sankaran Nair, from the very beginning of his career at the bar, was looked upon as a rising man. Hailing from Malabar, litigants from the West Coast flocked to him, his special knowledge of the land tenures of that district and of its social customs and institutions singling him out as being peculiarly fitted to represent the grievances and difficulties of Malabar clients. Sankaran Nair was a member of the Vakils' Association, which body at that time passed a resolution that no Vakil should engage a barrister as his senior. The resolution was passed, from all accounts, with the object of crippling the predominating practice of barristers who obtained the lion's share; and the result of that resolution has been that the barrister element, so far as

Europeans are concerned, was considerably handicapped and for a time practically deserted Madras for Calcutta and other places; and the Vakils have since had the bulk of the practice. Sankaran Nair refused to give his adhesion to the resolution aforesaid and dared to claim for himself the right to choose his seniors, or juniors, just as he pleased. Considering his comparatively junior position in the Vakil bar, his courage in standing by his convictions and acting in some degree against his prospects, demonstrated his honesty, at the expense of a cleavage with his fellow-Vakils which has only of late years been bridged over. Notwithstanding this breach in the continuity of his amicable relations with the Vakils, his eminence as an able lawyer and advocate earned for him the support of a large clientele, and this was all the more extraordinary when he had men like Sir V. Bashyam Iyengar, Sir Subramania Iyer, Raja T. Rama Rao, and afterwards V. Krishnasawmy Aiyar, P. S. Sivaswamy Aiyar and P. R. Sundaram Aiyar and others of like calibre as rivals. Two of those rivals became members of the Madras Executive Council-the late Mr. V. Krishnaswami Aiyar and his successor the Hon. Sir. P. S. Sivaswamy Aiyar. Sankaran Nair's relations with the Bench were always extremely cordial, and the late Sir Muthusawmy Aiyar expressed the opinion that Mr. Sankaran Nair should be appointed as District Judge while Sir Charles Turner predicted that he would become a High Court Judge.

AS A JOURNALIST.

While Mr. Sankaran Nair was in practice, he started the now defunct Madras Review, with which he was connected for only a short time. He was also closely associated with the Madras Law Journal. Many of his contri

butions appeared in the Madras daily papers, to one of which he has been a tower of strength. He has also been a contributor to the English Press, and his outspoken paper on the administration of justice in India in the Contemporary Review resulted in a strong Anglo-Indian agitation against the writer. When the article was published he had reverted to the bar after a short acting in

cumbency on the High Court Bench, and when the next vacancy occurred he was passed over in deference, apparently, to that agitation. Later on, he was restored to the High Court Bench, and now he has obtained a more distinguished position, so the AngloIndian agitation proved, in the long run, brutum fulmen.

AS HIGH COURT JUDGE.

Mr. Sankaran Nair acted three times as Puisne Judge of the High Court before he was permanently appointed to that position in 1908. Previously, he had been Government Pleader on and off several times and conducted some important trials, chief among which was the trial of the persons concerned in the Shanar Maravar riots of Tinnevelly, and in 1907, was appointed Advocate-General, Madras, being the first Vakil to hold permanently that important and dignified office. And Sankaran Nair, it may be mentioned, owed this directly to Lord Morley, then Secretary of State. He seemed to have felt the unjust treatment meted out to him by the local Governments and he therefore directly made the offer to Mr. Sankaran Nair through the Governor of Madras, Sir Arthur Lawley. As permanent High Court Judge he succeeded Sir Subramania Aiyar. Mr. Sankaran Nair was recognised to be a sound and strong Judge, and easily maintained his position with the ablest and strongest of his European colleagues. His independence and integrity were unquestioned. In the Tinnevelly Sedition Case, which occa sioned much excitement in the Presidency, Mr. Justice Sankaran Nair pursued his own line and undeterred by fear or favour or accusations of partiality pronounced judgment according to his convictions regardless of agreement or dissent from his colleagues.

HIS PUBLIC LIFE-OFFICIAL.

When Mr. Sankaran Nair was practising as a Vakil, he was made a member of the Committee appointed to enquire into the state of the Malabar Tenants. The relations between landlord and tenant in Malabar is a vexata quæstio with which the Government have always been loath to deal, and his work in that investigation was greatly appreciated by the

authorities. Later on, he was appointed Secretary to the Devastanam Committee, of which Sir T. Muthusawmy Aiyar was President, in which capacity also he earned the encomiums of the authorities. In 1889, he was nominated a Fellow of the Madras Uni

versity and although he was frequently invited to serve and did serve for several years on the Syndicate, he declined the honor afterwards owing to more attractive work in other directions. It was in the Senate most certainly that he sowed, unconsciously, the seeds which have blossomed into the tree of Educational Membership, for there he showed himself to be a dispassionate critic of educational matters, with no arrière pensée or partiality with regard to any particular class or community. In the following year he was nominated a non-official member of the Madras Legislative Council, and although at that time nonofficial members were allowed no scope to assert themselves, Mr. Sankaran Nair was always considered a sane and sober member, who indulged in no visionary Utopias, but a man who was prepared to do his utmost to help his countrymen to the best of his power and ability. While on the Council he helped forward two important legal enactments. One concerning village servants and municipalities in the Presidency and the second, a much more significant and far-reaching measure, that of the Malabar Marriage Act. He was one of the chief members of the Commission appointed for making recommendations on the subject, in which his knowledge of his native district, and its peculiar conditions, peculiarly fitted him to be an adviser. It may also be remembered that he was a member of a Provincial Legislative Council before and subsequent to Lord Cross's Act. Mr. Sankaran Nair also served on the first Education Commission after Lord Curzon's Commission visited Madras. "I had," said Sir Sankaran Nair, at a recent farewell function given in his honor, "to take the chief part, perhaps the whole responsibility of framing questions to be put to the witnesses, which no doubt directed the enquiry of the Commissioners." Sir Sankaran Nair was one of the witnesses examined

before the first Public Services Commission of 1886, and also in the last Public Services Commission enquiry held at Madras three years ago, his evidence was among the most outspoken of the many bold and honest statements made on that occasion.

PUBLIC LIFE-UNOFFICIAL.

Sir Sankaran Nair has identified himself with various movements for the uplift of his countrymen. In recognition of his public services he was made President of the first Provincial Conference, held in the city of Madras in 1897, just when the political life of India had begun to get exciting. The plague measures had begun, making Bombay and Poona furious. From the very inception of the Indian National Congress, Sir Sankaran Nair gave it his warmest adhesion and, himself a student of political conditions prior to 1886, he threw himself heart and soul into Congress activities. When the Congress attained the 13th anniversary of its birth, Sir Sankaran Nair was elected as the President of the Session at Amraoti. That was in 1897-a period immediately following the imprisonment of Tilak, and the deportation and internment of the Natu brothers-a period of political agitation and discontent. Nevertheless, Sir Sankaran Nair's Presidential Address was a frank, courageous and absolutely impartial review of the relations existing between rulers and ruled, of the obligations and responsibilities on both sides, and an optimistic survey of the possibilities or more correctly-the certainties of India's future. In that address the speaker gave a concise résumé of the duties of Government, and the hopes and aspirations of the Indian people.

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Sir Sankaran Nair also presided over the National Social Conference in 1908. In that year he was invited by was invited by His Excellency the Chancellor of the Madras University, at that time Sir Arthur Lawley, to the Convocation Address. Convocation addresses can scarcely ever claim the distinction of complete originality, and Sir Sankaran Nair's was no exception to that rule; but, nevertheless, it was a manly,

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straightforward discriminating, revealing of Indians, recognising and fully acknowledging the benefits conferred by England, and au address which by its clarity of utterance and statement of the true condition of things educational, political, religious, social and industrial, is well worth heing perused by all students and every friend of India. It showed Sir Sankaran Nair's firm grasp of the educational needs of India which augurs favourably for the fruition of his task as Educational Member at Delhi.

As a social reformer Sir Sankaran Nair holds that an ounce of practice and example is worth tons of theory and exhortation, and in his own life he has been a living exemplar of that opinion. There is no need to dwell on the many speeches in which he has advocated the necessity for, and urgency of, thorough-going social reformation in the life of the Indian people. Rigid caste observances and puerile social differences are, to Sir Sankaran Nair, as "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals," and the essential fact that one man is as good as another socially, intellectual and moral considerations being equal, is one of his strongest convictions. It may be mentioned that Sir Sankaran Nair was created a Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire in the year 1904; and he was knighted in 1912 : perhaps, other honors will fall to him before he relinquishes the task he has set his hand to as Educational Member. Be that as it may, there are some who consider that his career evidences nothing to demonstrate that he will make a good controller of education. This criticism, it is to be feared, proceeds from a mind as narrow as that of the pedagogue. The man whose vocation has been that of a teacher in a college is perhaps the least fitted to take a broad and statesmanlike view of education. Such a man may do well as a departmental head, but not as a minister for education. The minister for education must have ideas far different from those of the teacher. And nowhere have we seen a teacher put at the head of education except for administrative purposes. But these people

will do well to remember that Sir Sankaran Nair's grasp of the educational needs of the Indian Empire is not the least prominent of his many-sided activities. He has not been the professor of a college, or a school pedagogue, but none the less is it certain that there is a large consensus of opinion that with his manysided experiences of public life, his sympathy with the poor and the depressed classes, his liberal views of the great and important part women should occupy in the social life of a people, his knowledge of conditions in England especially, and European countries generally, he will prove himself worthy of the high office of Education Member of the Viceregal Council.

One of the first results of Sir Sankaran Nair's appointment to the Executive Council of the Viceroy in succession to Sir Harcourt Butler is the Government of India Circular to the Provincial Governments regarding the education of women. Sir Sankaran Nair's commendable enthusiasm for female education has so soon fructified in an enquiry, the terms of which have already appeared in these columns.

But with regard to this question of female education, Sir Sankaran Nair has had decided views, and it is no wonder that we have the Government of India Circular on the Education of Women so soon after his appointment to the Viceregal Council.

For some time past various movements have sprung up both in England and India regarding the subject of Women's Education, and under the fostering direction of Sir William Wedderburn and Mrs. Fawcett, a Deputation waited on the Rt. Hon. Austin Chamberlain, the Secretary of State for India, on the 12th October 1915. It is believed that the circular letter of the 22nd of February 1916, on the Education of Women in India is an indication of the enlightened and sympathetic interest of the Government of India towards female education. In pursuance of this note we may feel confident that measures will soon be undertaken to place the education of Indian women on a secure and ever-expanding basis

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of this country, two deficiencies must be strikingly apparent. In the first place, no systematic attempt has yet been made to enlighten the masses, to rouse in them a feeling of patriotism, and to awaken an intelligent interest on their part in matters which affect their weal or woe. In the second place, even among those who take part in public life only a few have undergone the necessary training, or have equipped themselves with the knowledge essential to the fulfilment of their duties. The national movement that commenced thirty years ago has indeed taken firm root in the country. A great deal of work has been done during this period. The National Congress, the Provincial Conferences, the Muslim League, and our other organisations, and, last but not least, the Indian Press, have all contributed to the building up of a new national life. Interest in public questions has been growing, and the standard of knowledge of those questions possessed by the public has been rising. This is an achievement which no fair-minded critic will belittle. At the same time, no one can deny that there is need for a much greater diffusion of knowledge, for greater earnestness and for more continuous work, in order that public opinion may be better educated, better organised, and grow steadily but rapidly in strength and volume. The air is thick with new ideas, and the future is fraught with immense possibilities for good if we only know how to take advantage of them.

Knowledge of public questions will also be a means of promoting closer union between the various races inhabiting this vast land which is the supreme need of the hour. Discord can last only so long as it is not realized that the interests of all Indians, to whichever creed or community they may belong, are essentially one and the same. A study of public questions will tend to diminish the differences that exist at present by disclosing the essential identity of interests of all Indians in regard to the advantages which are open to them and the disabilities they labour under. The mists of ignorant prejudice will melt away before the light of knowledge, and all communal considerations will sink into insignificance by the side of the great and beneficent work of national development that lies before us, and the accomplishment of which will offer new prospects of advancement and usher in a new era of happiness and prosperity to all the children of the Motherland.

It is the earnest desire of the Servants of India Society to render all the service it can in promoting this object. It was Mr. Gokhale's intention to publish collections of original documents bearing on the most important public problems of our country with an introduction to each volume, giving an impartial history of the question with which it dealt. His disciples wish to carry out his idea in an altered form. They propose to publish not original documents but pamphlets in English, Urdu and Hindi, each of which will deal in a connected form with some important subject of public interest. They believe that in the present state of things such pamphlets will be much more appreciated by the public than original documents, and there is no doubt whatever of their greater utility in the case of men unacquainted with English. The pamphlets will consist of between 50 and 100 pages, and will be priced as low as possible in order that they may be within the reach of men of limited means. They will be written in

such a way as to prove interesting to the ordinary reader and informing to the student of public affairs. Every effort is being made to induce the most competent writers to undertake the task of preparing them, in order that they may be worthy of being placed before the public as weighty presentments of the question with which they deal,

The pamphlets will deal with the following subjects:

Self-Government for India; Responsible Government in the Dominions; History of the Reform Movement in India; The economic condition of the masses; Land Revenue; Co-operation; Indian Commerce and Industries; Railways; Indian Finance; Provincial Finance; Indians and the Army; Education; Local Self-Government; The Public Services in India; The AdministraExcise; tion of Justice; Police; Indians Abroad; Indian Feudatory States.

It is estimated that the cost of collecting the blue-books and other documents, which will be required for the preparation of the pamphlets and of their publication, will amount to about Rs. 10,000. But the Servants of India Society has neither the capital required for this undertaking nor the resources to bear any loss should it prove a financial failure. The Society earnestly appeals, therefore, to the public to supply it with the funds necessary for the accomplishment of the task that it has set before itself of helping to mould public opinion, which after all is the greatest force in every civilized State.