Autobiographies by Indians have one unique quality—their pedestrianism. An exception was Jawaharlal Nehru’s Autobiography and now we have another, Chari’s.
Starting from his schooldays in Secunderabad to the peak of his career as a senior advocate in the Supreme Court he describes his life in a racy style. He writes of his days with the great criminal lawyer, Azad, his days as a freedom fighter and of his attraction towards Communism. His comments about the Communists are revealing especially those on B.T. Ranadive. To quote his own words, ‘when B.T.R. was in the saddle it was as if he was riding a mad Pegasus. Men comrades were condemned as reformists because they dared to disagree with B.T.R’s policy. Expulsions galore. Wives were compelled to issue public statements disowning their husbands for their reformism. B.T.R. ridiculed the idea of the Party living like a close-knit family. It would be a ‘revolutionary army’, he said. Mutual confidence between Party members was destroyed. There was no mechanism, no method by which the sectarianism in the Party could be checked.’