Just now my mother was saying that Doctor Sunderlal has become a member of parliament. The
new government ... after Indira’s assassination, Rajiv Gandhi chose him. He is rich and certainly
respected in the town because he is the only doctor – an honorary doctor! People get ... and
perhaps he believes it. Now you cannot tell him that he is not. He will drag you to the court.
Now, for almost thirty years he has been a doctor; that is enough. Nobody has objected, nobody
has raised a question. In his election campaign his name was Doctor Sunderlal, D.Litt. – ”Vote for
Doctor Sunderlal, D.Litt.” Perhaps – and he is a little nuts – he believes that he is. I know that even I
cannot persuade him that ”this doctorate I gave to you.” He will laugh and say, ”What are you saying?
I have been a doctor for thirty years. You were just a little kid when I became a doctor!”
He will not agree so easily to drop his doctorate. But even if you get a doctorate from a university,
what does it mean? There is not much difference.
I know one very famous Indian politician, Doctor Govindadas. Maitreya knows him because they
both were in parliament together. Doctor Govindadas was in the parliament perhaps the longest time
in the whole history of humanity: from 1914 till he died, I think in 1978, he remained continuously,
without a single gap, a member of parliament. He was the richest man in the whole state of Madhya
Pradesh.
His father was given the title of raja, king; although he was not a king, he had so much land, and so
many properties – one third of the houses of the whole city of Jabalpur, which is ten times bigger than
Portland, belonged to him. He had so much land that the British government thought it perfectly right
to give him the title. And he was helping the British government, so he was called Raja Gokuldas,
and his house was not called a house, it was called Gokuldas Palace.
Govindadas was Gokuldas’ eldest son – a very mediocre mind. It hurts me to say so but what can
I do? If he was mediocre it is not my fault. He was very kind and friendly to me and very respectful
too. He was very old but he used to come every day whenever he was in Jabalpur. Whenever the
parliament was not in session he was in Jabalpur; otherwise he was in New Delhi. Whenever he
was in Jabalpur, in the morning from eight to eleven, his limousine was standing in front of my door,
every day religiously.
Anybody wanting to meet him between eight and eleven need not go anywhere; he had just to
stand outside my gate. What was happening in those three hours? He used to come there with his
secretary, his steno. He would ask me a question, I would answer, and the steno would write it in
shorthand. Then he published in his own name everything that I said.
Govindadas has published books, two books; not a single word is his. Yes, there are a few words
from the secretary. I was puzzled when I saw those books – and he presented them to me. I looked
inside ... I knew that this was going to happen, it was happening every day – in newspapers he was
publishing my answers all over India.
He was president of the Hindi language’s most prestigious institution, HINDI SAHITYA SAMMELAN;
he was the president of that. Once Mahatma Gandhi was president of that, so you can understand
the prestige of the institution.
Govindadas was president for almost twenty years, and he was the main proponent in the parliament
that Hindi should become the national language. And he made Hindi the national language, at least
in the constitution. It is not functioning – English still functions as the national language – but he put
it in the constitution.
He was known all over the country. Every newspaper, every news magazine, was publishing his
articles – and they were my answers! But I was puzzled, because once in a while there would be a
quotation from Tulsidas, Surdas, Kabirdas. I could not believe that he had even the intelligence to
put the quotation in the right place, in the right context.
So I asked his steno one day when I was staying in Delhi in Govindadas’s house. I asked his
steno, ”Shrivastava, everything else is perfectly right; I just wonder about these – Surdas, Tulsidas,
Kabirdas – how Seth Govindadas manages to put them ...”
He said, ”Seth Govindadas? I put them in.”
I said, ”Who told you to put them in?”
He said, ”He says that at least something should be put from our side too.”
I said, ”I am not going to tell anybody, but just to deceive me, these two lines of Kabirdas in the
whole question? You have been putting them in and you think I will be deceived?”
He said, ”I had to work hard, looking into Kabirdas’ collection to find some lines which could fit
somewhere in your question.”
I said, ”You are a fool; you should have asked me. When your master can steal the whole article,
you, being his steno, should at least learn this much politics. You could have said to me, ‘Just give
me two or three quotations so that I can fit them in.’ In future don’t bother yourself.”
He was a poor man, and where would he find Kabirdas, and something very relevant to me? So I
used to give quotations to Shrivastava and say, ”These are the lines you fit in so Govindadas remains
happy.”
Why did I want him to remain happy? He was helpful to me in the same way that the boy was
helpful to me. I was continually out of town without any leave from the university. Govindadas’
limousine standing in front of my door was enough. The vice-chancellor was afraid of me because
Govindadas was a powerful man; the vice-chancellor could be immediately transferred, removed –
just a hint from me was enough. The professors were afraid. They were really puzzled why every
day Govindadas was hypnotized; he spent three hours with me every day.
And he started bringing other politicians. He introduced me to every chief minister, every cabinet
minister in the central government, because they all were his guests in Jabalpur. Jawaharlal used to
be his guest in Jabalpur. He introduced me to almost all the politicians; I think Maitreya must have
come to me through Seth Govindadas. He even arranged for a small group of important members
to meet me in parliament house itself. Maitreya certainly must have been there.
Govindadas was helpful, so I said, ”There is no problem. And it does not matter whose name goes
on the articles. The question reaches to thousands of people. The answer reaches to thousands of
people. That is important; my name or Govindadas’s name, it does not matter. What matters is the
matter.”
This man remained continuously in contact with me for almost ten years, and when I told him, ”We
are strangers,” he said, ”What are you saying? We have known each other for ten years.”
I said, ”We don’t know each other. I know your name, Govindadas; it has been given by your father.
The doctorate you have received from the university. I know how much value that doctorate has, and
why you have been given that doctorate – because it was you who proposed the vice-chancellor.
Now the vice-chancellor has to pay you back with the doctorate. The vice-chancellor is your man,
and if he manages to give you a doctorate there is no wonder in it. Your D.Litt is absolutely bogus.”
First I used to hear .... He had written almost one hundred dramas. He was in competition with
George Bernard Shaw because George Bernard Shaw was the great drama writer and he had
written one hundred dramas. So Seth Govindadas was also a great drama writer of Hindi language
– a hundred dramas. And he was not capable of writing a single drama!
He was not capable of even writing a single speech – his speeches were written by that poor
Shrivastava. Govindadas has published one hundred dramas. By and by I came to know those
people who had written them – for money – poor people, poor teachers, professors. So I told
Govindadas, ”I know what your D.Litt is: one hundred dramas, and none is written by you. Now I can
say it authoritatively, because you go on publishing articles, and now you have published two books
without even telling me, ‘I am going to put your answers in these books.’ And they are nothing but
my answers – there is nothing else.”
So I said to him, ”Doctor Govindadas, I also have such a doctor in my village – Doctor Sunderlal.
I have given him the doctorate. He has not written one hundred dramas, neither have you. Just
the way you believe you are a doctor, he believes he is a doctor. And I don’t think there is much
difference of quality in your minds, because seth is a title ...”
Before he became a doctor he was known all over the country as Seth Govindadas. Seth is a title,
it comes from an ancient Sanskrit word, shreshth. Shreshth means the superior one; from shreshth
it became shreshthi and from shreshthi it became seth. In Rajasthani sethi, sethia – it went on
changing. But it is a title.
So when Govindadas became a doctor he started writing ”Doctor Seth Govindadas.” It was Pandit
Jawaharlal Nehru who told him, ”Govindadas, two titles are never written in front of a name. Either
you write ”Seth,” then you can write ”D.Litt” behind, but if you write ”Doctor” in front then you cannot
write ”Seth.”
So he asked me what to do. I said, ”There is no problem. You write ”Doctor (Seth) Govindadas.”
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