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Manohar Lal: Scholar, Economist and Statesman1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 February 2009
Abstract
Manohar Lal was an outstanding student of Alfred Marshall, a highly respected teacher, a successful lawyer-politician and a very able provincial Minister of Finance. The focus, in this paper, is on his stay in Cambridge until 1906, his career in India as an economist and as a lawyer and politician in the Punjab until 1945. I argue that his work in economics was not marked by great originality. His achievements were to have been a good teacher, to have successfully competed with British students and to have established close personal links with the British academic community. In politics, while he did not have a political base and was a scholar among politicians, he held high office with great competence. I believe he was one of the select groups of Indians who provided an inspiration to others by showing that Indians could compete successfully with the best from any country at the highest level.
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References
2 Anand Chandavarkar, Keynes and India: A Study in Economics and Biography, Basingstoke, 1989, provides some discussion although mainly on the Indian economists who were students of Keynes.
3 Patrick Lacey refers to him as ‘Lala Manohar Lal’. See Lacey, Patrick, Fascist India, Nicholson and Watson, London, 1946, pp. 87, 91Google Scholar.
4 For Manohar Lal's early life I have depended on two major sources: Sen, NB (ed.): Punjab's Eminent Hindus, New Book Society, Lahore, 1944Google Scholar; St John's College, Register of Twentieth Century Johnians, Volume I, 1900–1949, Cambridge, 2004 and material available in the archives of St John's College. The former source reprints a couple of journalistic pieces on him in The Tribune and the Civil and Military Gazette, which appear to have some inaccuracies; the St John's College sources appear more reliable.
5 One is tempted to draw a parallel with his friend, Raghunath Purushottam Paranjpye, also of St John's College. He was Senior Wrangler in Mathematics, and secured his first division in the Mathematics Tripos in 1900. He was elected Fellow of St John's in 1901, a position Manohar Lal failed to achieve. Also, Paranjpye received a congratulatory telegram from the Viceroy, and HS Bhatavadekar filmed his return to India in the first Indian documentary film. See www.downmelodylane.com/silentera.html (28 April 2008).
6 JC Whitaker (ed.), The Correspondence of Alfred Marshall, Economist: Volume 3, Towards the Close, 1903–1924, Marshall to Foxwell, letter 752 of 29 June 1903, pp. 28–30. Subsequent references in the text to Marshall's letters generally use the letter numbers assigned by Whitaker.
7 NB Sen: Punjab's Eminent Hindus, p. 97. The source of this quotation cannot be traced, and it appears at variance with Marshall's view, expressed in writing to Tanner, that Manohar Lal's essay lacked originality.
8 On the other hand, DH Macgregor published his book in 1906. See Macgregor, DH, Industrial Combinations, London, George Bell and Sons, 1906Google Scholar. It was reprinted in the London School of Economics Series of Reprints of Scarce Works on Political Economy in 1935. This was originally his Trinity College fellowship essay of 1904.
9 St John's College Archive, papers relating to the Fellowship Election of 1905.
10 See Whitaker (ed.): The Correspondence of Alfred Marshall, letters 829 and 830, pp.115–117.
11 St John's College Archive, papers relating to the Fellowship Election of 1905.
12 See NB Sen, Punjab's Eminent Hindus, p. 95.
13 The Tribune, 2 May 1949.
14 Manohar Lal to JC Tanner, 11 January 1906, St John's Archives.
15 He later changed his name to Alma Latifi, joined the ICS and wrote Industrial Punjab, A Survey of Facts, Conditions and Possibilities, published by the Punjab Government and Longman, Green and Company, Bombay in 1911.
16 See JC Whitaker(ed.), The Correspondence of Alfred Marshall. See letter 766, dated 15 August 1903 (to Latif); letters 980 and 1000, dated 22 October 1910 and 12 April 1911 respectively (to BB Mukherji); and letter 1111 of 14 May 1920 (to JC Sinha). Apart from this, there are five letters, dated 3 October 1903, 8 June 1905, 20 March 1920, 29 November 1920 and 8 April 1924, from Marshall to Coyajee, which form part of Coyajee Private Papers at the National Archives in New Delhi. Whitaker does not report these. It is possible that Marshall had written to many other Indians but records of such correspondence are not available, or have not yet been traced. Marshall is also reported to have written to Lord Minto, the Viceroy of India, strongly recommending Manohar Lal for the Minto Professorship in Economics at Calcutta University.
17 See Pigou, AC, Memorials of Alfred Marshall, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1925Google Scholar, and JC Whitaker (ed.), The Correspondence of Alfred Marshall, Economist: Volume 3, Towards the Close, 1903–1924.
18 See Whitaker, p. 217n.
19 See also Marshall's letters to BB Mukherji (letters 980 and 1000), which revealed more clearly his views on protection and Indian development.
20 Mukherjee, Radhakamal, India: The Dawn of a New Civilization (An Autobiography), Radha Publications, Delhi, 1997, p. 67Google Scholar.
21 This attempt to get Manohar Lal a college fellowship must have taken place earlier in 1904, before Manohar Lal's Cobden Prize essay. Unfortunately no details are available.
22 Another indication of his regard for Manohar Lal is that he recommended him to Lord Minto for the Minto Professorship.
23 National Archives of India [hereafter NAI], Coyajee Private Papers, section A, letter 42. One may assume that there was a letter to Manohar Lal as well.
24 See Sinha, NK, Ashutosh Mookerjee: A Biographical Study, Calcutta, 1966, p. 80Google Scholar.
25 Biographical sketch, The Tribune of 2 May 1949.
26 See Mukherjee, Radhakamal, India, the Dawn of a New Era: an Autobiography, Radha Publications, New Delhi, 1997, p. 67Google Scholar.
27 There was a preference for British economists: The chair in Allahabad went to Herbert Stanley Jevons in 1912 and the chair in Madras to Gilbert Slater in 1915.
28 Slater, Gilbert, Southern India: Its Political and Economic Problems, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1936, p. 17Google Scholar.
29 NK Sinha, Ashutosh Mookerjee, p. 84. There was, however, some resentment against outsiders among locals. See Gopal, S, Radhakrishnan: A biography, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1989, pp. 115–119Google Scholar.
30 See the ‘Directory of Economists in India’, in the Indian Journal of Economics, Volume IV, pp. 218–223Google Scholar
31 Welcome speech at the 19th session of the All-India Economic Conference, Dacca, 1935, reported in the Indian Journal of Economics, 1935–1936, p. 668.
32 See Radhakamal Mukherjee, India, the Dawn of a New Era, p. 67.
33 See ‘Some Reminiscences’, by Coyajee, Sir Jehangir in The Presidency College Magazine, Volume XXV, No.2, March 1939, Silver Jubilee Number, Calcutta 1939, p. 166Google Scholar.
34 GC Chatterjee in The Tribune, 4 May 1949.
35 NAI, Coyajee Papers, Section M, Serial 41, Manohar Lal to Coyajee, Lahore, 22 March 1927, National Archives, New Delhi.
36 NAI, Coyajee Papers, Section F, Serial 1, PC Chowdhury to Coyajee, Lahore, 5 October 1921, suggests that Manohar Lal was offered membership but refused as the Finance Department would not allow him Rs. 3,500 a month, but only Rs. 1,500. Chowdhury, a former student of Coyajee and working in the government, was probably in a position to know.
37 Source: Typewritten note in the St John's College Archive.
38 Indian Journal of Economics, Volume I, 1916–1917, pp. 161–180.
39 Indian Journal of Economics, Volume XI, 1930–1931, pp. 596–598.
40 Indian Journal of Economics, Volume XV, 1934–1935, pp. 797–798. His views were seen by some as pro-moneylender and reflective of his urban commercial caste background. See the discussion below on his work as Finance Minister.
41 NB Sen (ed.), Punjab's Eminent Hindus, p. 94.
42 See Myles, WH, ‘Board of Economic Enquiry, Punjab’, Indian Journal of Economics, Volume IV, 1924–1925, p. 248Google Scholar.
43 See The Stephanian, Winter 1958, No. 1, article by SKB, ‘KC Nag: Lecturer in Economics, 1921–1958’, p. 5. Nag was my first teacher in economics, an inspired teacher who was a staunch Marshallian, probably influenced by Coyajee and Manohar Lal.
44 I am indebted to the late Professor SV Kogekar for an eye-witness account of this function during my interview with him in 2005. The volume referred to is Karve, DG (ed.), Historical and Economic Studies, Poona, 1941Google Scholar.
45 Jayakar, MR, The Story of My Life, Volume 1, 1873–1922Google Scholar, Asia Publishing House, Bombay, 1959, p. 290. Jayakar was a well-known politician and educationist.
46 See India, Committee on Disturbances in Bombay, Delhi and the Punjab, 1919–20, Report, Superintendent, Government Printing, Calcutta, 1920, p. 235Google Scholar.
47 Ibid., p. xxxviii.
48 See Nigel A Collett, ‘The Jallianwala Bagh Revisited I’, United Services of India Journal, April–June 2006.
49 This is discussed further in the next section.
50 Talbot, Ian, Punjab and the Raj, 1891–1947, Manohar, New Delhi, 1988, p. 135nGoogle Scholar.
51 Biographical Sketch in The Tribune, 2 May 1949.
52 For a contrary view, see the biography of Fazli-i-Hussain by his son A Hussain, Fazli-i-Hussain—A Political Biography, Longman Green and Co, Bombay 1946, especially, p. 161Google Scholar.
53 See the tribute by GC Chatterjee, vice-chancellor, East Punjab University in The Tribune, 4 May, 1949.
54 Thomas, PJ, The Growth of Federal Finance in India, Oxford University Press, London, 1939, p. 437Google Scholar.
55 See ML Bharadwaj's article in NB Sen, Punjab's Eminent Hindus, p. 94.
56 See Carter, Lionel (compiler and editor): Punjab Politics: The Start of Provincial Autonomy-–Governors’ Fortnightly Reports and Other Key Documents, Manohar, New Delhi, 2004 [hereafter Carter I] Document 69Google Scholar, Craik to Linlithgow, 23–24 December 1938, p. 276.
57 Carter I, Document 71, Note by Craik 4 January 1939, p 292.
58 Carter, Lionel (complier and editor): Punjab Politics 1940–43: Strains of War-–Government's Fortnightly Reports and Other Key Documents, Manohar, New Delhi 2005Google Scholar [Hereafter Carter II] Document 11, Craik to Linlithgow, 4 March 1940, p 83.
59 Carter II, Document 81, Note by Glancy, 8 July 1941, p 262.
60 Carter II, Document 157 (enclosure), p. 383–384.
61 Carter I, Document 28, p. 167. The identity of these prisoners is not known.
62 Carter I, Document 37, Enclosure 1, p. 189.
63 Carter I, Document 53, p. 235.
64 Carter I, Document 53, Note by Craik, 1 July 1938.
65 See the discussion in Section 4 of his views on legislation and rural indebtedness based on economic arguments.
66 This section draws heavily on two pieces in NB Sen (ed.): Punjab's Eminent Hindus. One is an article by ML Bharadwaj on Manohar Lal that appeared in the Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore and the other is an interview of Manohar Lal in The Tribune on the occasion of the conferment of Doctor of Literature by Punjab University. Use has also been made of the correspondence of the Punjab Governor with the Viceroy, complied by Lionel Carter (Carter I and II, referred to earlier).
67 Coyajee mentions this describing the days when he shared an apartment in Calcutta with Manohar Lal. See also L Ram Labhaya's posthumous tribute in The Tribune, 8 May 1949.
68 I am indebted to Khushwant Singh for this information (personal communication, 22 July 2006). He writes: ‘I never met Manohar Lal, but saw him at a distance a few times. I spoke to him on the phone once-–he snubbed me. I paid him back by writing a short story called “Karma” . . .’ The story appeared in The Mark of Vishnu and Other Stories, and is reprinted in The Collected Short Stories of Khushwant Singh, Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2003.
69 Moon, Penderel, Divide and Quit, Chatto and Windus, London 1961, pp. 118–119Google Scholar.
70 See Chander Shekhar Azad, Naqsh-i-Mustaqill-i-Faridkot Tahrik Unnis Sau Chayalis, published in 1966, pp. 4–5.
71 Note by Sir Bertrand Glancy 8 July 1941 in Carter II, Document 81, p. 262; also Document 157, note by Glancy of 21 July 1943, enclosure, p. 383.
72 See NB Sen (ed.): Punjab's Eminent Hindus, pp. 94–97.
73 Marshall's reply to Manohar Lal appeared in print in 1925 in Pigou, AC (ed.), The Memorials of Alfred Marshall, Macmillan and Co., London 1925Google Scholar.
74 Speech of Rehman, AF, chairman of the reception committee of the Indian Economic Conference, Dacca, 1936, reported in the Indian Journal of Economics, Volume XVI, 1935–1936, pp. 667–668Google Scholar.
75 Ibid., p. 97.
76 Moon, Penderel, Divide and Quit, Chatto and Windus, London 1961, pp. 118–119Google Scholar.
77 As Bharadwaj put it: ‘He is a keen student of politics, but he likes to keep himself free from the rough and tumble of the political game.’ See NB Sen, Punjab's Eminent Hindus, p. 93.