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Chandulal Patel: Education Minister of Gondal State sterling service to Gujarati language as editor of  “Bhavadgomandal”.

 

Photograph of Chandulal by his professional photographer son Prafullbhai Patel.

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Author, Urvish Kothari

Text, for BBC Gujarati

27th march, 2023

This Series is a festival of exploring the intellectual prowess of Guajarati’s, through a coverage of those individuals who broke the mould in various domains & changed perceptions of their community.

Chandulal Patel – the progressive Education Minister of the erstwhile Gondal state – delivered a sterling service to the Gujarati language as editor of the 9 volume Gujarati lexicon “Bhagavadgomandal” covering 281,000 words.

Majority of the 550 princely states of colonised India suffered from oppression, cruelty and stagnation. But there were a few exceptional states like Gondal with enlightened royalty who initiated important activities to benefit the populace. Gondal’s visionary prince – a graduate of medical studies in Britain – was one such benevolent Royal. It was as a result of this exceptional mind-set that he recruited young Chandulal Patel into government service, and empowered him to deliver significant service in the Education sector.

College time interest in serving nation & education

Born in Shihore in 1889 to Gondal’s poet laureate “Vihari”, Chandulal was immersed in literature and language. He was focussed on serving the nation and specifically the domain of education, from his early university days. This desire was well formed by the time he graduated with a B.A. in mathematics from Bhavanagar’s Shamaladas college, for a career in education and social welfare. He formed the “Premshaurya” (Love & courage) Society  with a few like minded friends while still in college, after admiring the work of the Theosophical Society, and reading the writings of famed poet “Narmad”.  This Society later spun-off other organisations like the “Patidar Yuvak Mandal” (Patidar Youth Group) and others.

Even as Chandubhai was closely involved with “Patel Vidyarthi Ashram” (Patel Student’s Dormitory) located in Surat, events precipitated his move to Gondal. The Maharaja of Gondal – HM Bhagavatsinhji – was touring the villages of his kingdom as part of his 51st birthday celebrations. The host of this tour to Moti Maarad village, had invited Surat’s Patidar Yuvak Mandal and specifically Chandulal to the event. HM Bhagavatsinhji was impressed with Chandulal’s speech there. Later at the urging of his father, Chandulal applied for a newly vacant position as an examiner in the government of Gondal state, and was immediately recruited to that position.

Gondal and Chandubhai were so mutually compatible that he served in the Education Ministry of Gondal from 1916 through 1952. His link to that domain continued as he continued to work on editing the Bhagavadgomandal till it’s publication in 1955.

His biography notes that he had always been attracted to Gandhiji’s thoughts, and was a frequent visitor to Kochrab Ashram established by Gandhiji in Ahmedabad. Given Bhagavadsinhji’s progressive attitudes, Gandhiji’s thoughts and events had free reign in Gondal in comparison to the neighbouring States. Thus Chandulal’s association with Gandhiji, khaadi, and nationalistic activities continued.

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Gondal’s young Education Minister: Chandulal.

Soon after taking over as Gondal’s Education minister, he edited a book on Gandhiji’s thoughts. He selected 14 key ideas from collection of Gandhiji’s thoughts, and the corresponding articles published in the magazine “Navjeevan”. They covered topics like Truth, Non-violence, Untouchability, rural communities, and local governance. The collection was titled “Gandhiji Na VichaarRatno” (Gems of Gandhiji’s Thoughts) and Kaka Kalelkar (a prominent literary and leadership figure) praised and validated the credibility of the contents, leading to its acceptance as a textbook by Gujarat University. Chandubhai the educationist was a firm believer in not commercialising education, so, he split the second edition of this book into 5 parts, and priced each at 2 paisa (paisa is like a penny or cent) each. A well known scholar and close associate of Gandhiji – Kishorelal Mashruwala had written to Chandubhai saying, “have received the second edition of the book. Revered bapuji was very happy with the book, although he preferred the sequence in the first edition. He liked the “truth” part as the first, and “self-rule” as the closing part of the book, as a natural progression. He also liked the idea of pricing the book at 2 paisa”.

At Maharaja Bhagavatsinhji initiative, Chandulal promulgated a law making female education compulsory in Gondal state. Local leaders made a multitude of excuses to block this law, but it was implemented with both carrot and the stick. The text books and rapid readers prepared during Chandulal’s tenure were so well appreciated by the neighbouring states that they adopted this material for their schools. Gujarati schools in far flung cities like Calcutta, Nagpur, Zariya, Madras (Chennai) as well as gujarati schools in Burma and East Africa also adopted these texts for their curriculums. These rapid readers fulfilled the  government’s firm recommendations, and were common for girls and boys. The presence of concepts that fed nationalist zeal in the society were widely welcomed. Leading educationists like Harbhai Trivedi and thinkers like Vijayrai Vaidya had praise for Chandulal along with praise for the rapid readers and text books.

Bhagavadgomandal: The stunning enterprise.

 Maharaja Bhagavatsinhji kicked off the ambitious project of compiling a Gujarati lexicon in 1928. Poet Narmad had earlier  compiled the Narmakosh, and there existed other lexical efforts like the Gujarat University publication called the “Saarth JodaNi kosh” (the comprehensive lexicon of word conjunctions with meanings). This latter publication has 43,743 words, and the third edition had 56,830. But both Bhagavatsinhji and Chandulal were not satisfied with this agglomeration. They additionally wanted to include synonyms, usage in proverbs, etymology, illustrations, synonyms from other languages and many more such word related attributes. The project started with a seed of 20,000 words collected by Maharaja Bhagavatsinhji through his personal efforts and dedicated interest. The lexicon was named Bhagavdgomandal, meaning Bhagvatsinh’s lexicon, but colloquially it means comprehensive encyclopaedia. It included words from various professions, regions, literatures, ritual processes, subjects, and object names, which Bhagavatsinhji had collected industriously,  with careful due diligence of source. He had a deep personal commitment to this project. If he came across a new word, but could not access writing media, he would happily scribble on the hem of his garment. He garnered words from Chanakya’s Arthasashtra, and from English language books of note. A public appeal for help and contribution to the project from the public to the Gondal lexicon had been made. Even though Saurashtra, Kutchchh and Gujarat were separate entities, words were acquired from people – common and scholars -  from all these areas.  This was an achievement of a determined king, and his committed education minister, which had been beyond larger established education institutions, and thus, must rank as a milestone event of gujarati language.

Complements and Encouragements.

            Maharaja Bhagavatsinhji

The Bhagavadgomandal project went on from 1928 to 1955. The lexicon was published in 9 volumes covering 9270 pages containing 281,000 words. The project cost was 300,000 rupees. The break even cost of the 9 volumes came to 543 rupees, but it was decided that the set be sold for 146 rupees.

At the launch of the first two volumes, it was announced that the Shankaracharya of the Dwarka Peeth had bestowed the title of “Vidyavaaridhi” (ocean of knowledge” on Chandulal. Chandulal had requested Gandhiji to write the Preface of the lexicon. Gandhiji replied, “Dear Chandulal, I received your letter. I am not empowered enough to write the preface. I have been fascinated by your enterprise. I believe it will be of immense service to our mother tongue”.

 

        Appreciation missive from Gandhiji to Chandulal Patel.

Various doyens of Gujarati literature praised Bhagavdgomandal with one voice. Kanhaiyalal Munshi (a giant of Gujarati literature) hailed the efforts of the Maharaja and Chandulal Patel, and commented that instead of calling it a lexicon, it should be considered an encyclopaedia. He wrote, “ Just as Johnson’s lexicon stabilised the English language, this lexicon will bring stability to usage and literature of Gujarati language”.

(Panchgini, 9-2-44)

“GandhiGnanKosh” Gandhi’s thoughts cast in stone.

In the early stages of his career, Chandulal Patel had compiled a collection of Gandhiji’s thoughts. After the completion of the Bhagavadgomandal project, he created GandhiGnanKosh as a supplement to the lexicon. It was introduced as a guide to Gandhiji’s “Experiments With Truth”. This supplement had an alphabetic organisation of subjects (the Gujarati alphabetic sequence) annotated with Gandhiji’s thoughts  on the topics.

At a stage when the effort to compile all of Gandhiji’s writings under the “The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi” project had not kicked off, this GandhiGnanKosh served as a reference to students of Gandhiji’s thoughts, although there was no cross reference to the source of Gandhiji’s thoughts.

              Front page of GandhiGnanKosh

Chandulal Patel retired from service with first the Gondal state, and subsequently (after independence) from the Saurashtra government service. Later at advancing age, he was afflicted with partial paralysis. One can find a poignant story about a related event in Rajanikumar Pandya’s biography of Chandulal called “Shabdyogi” (wordsmith). A signature was required on his pension papers, but his right hand was affected by paralysis. His assistant of long years of service, suggested that he put his left thumbprint on the document. Chandulal lost his cool that day, and yelled at his assistant, “Not a single girl of Gondal puts her thumbprint anywhere, and I should put my thumbprint on this document? I don’t want the pension, take these papers away!”

Chandulal Patel passed away in 1964, surrounded by his family. But his legacy is marked by his editorship of Bhagavadgomandal under the leadership of Maharaja Bhagvatsinhji, which remains a magnum opus of Gujarati language.

Primary reference: Chandulal Patel’s biography “Jivanrang”, edited by Savitriben Patel, Prafullchandra Patel, Krishnachandra Patel).