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On the afternoon of May 10, 1937, Pandurangi Kodanda Rao, an Indian social activist and follower of Mahatma Gandhi, was crossing a river at Kampong Luong in present-day Cambodia when he was stopped by a French policeman.
“I was accosted at the landing stage by a Police Inspector, who informed me that the Police had orders to forbid my proceeding to Saigon and that I was to go direct to the Police Office in Phnom Penh,” 48-year-old Rao wrote in a memorandum that was sent to a few British diplomats in South East Asia. “I was then transferred to the Police car and taken to the Police office in Phnom Penh, which was reached at about 4:15 pm.”
The inspector who detained Rao spoke good English and acted as an interpreter when he was questioned by senior French officials in Phnom Penh. It turned out the authorities wanted to know more about the organisation Rao worked for: the Servants Society of India.
For Rao, the experience must have been surely unusual. Until his run-in with the French, he had travelled unhindered to several countries, including the United States and Australia, while on a mission to interact with the Indian diaspora and understand its problems.
Even the British authorities in India had no issues with Rao’s world tour. They were the ones who gave him permission to travel abroad as long as he steered clear of political subjects in his talks and interactions.
World tour
Born in Visakhapatnam in 1889, Rao was attracted to social work right from his student days. In 1922, he became a member of the Servants Society of India, a body formed by social reformer Gopal Krishna Gokhale in 1905 with many noble-minded objectives. The society wanted to promote education, advance social justice and equality by encouraging social service, and foster civic engagement by exhorting young people to take part in the democratic process.
Rao was a member of the society for more than 36 years and served in various roles. In the 1930s, as private secretary to educator and independence activist VS Srinivasa Sastri, Rao accompanied him to the Round Table Conferences in Britain.
In the spring of 1937, his world tour took him to South East Asia, where he was welcomed in most countries. “The object of his tour is apparently to visit all countries where Indians have settled, and he carries letters of introduction from the Foreign Secretary to the Government of India (Sir H. A. F. Metcalfe) and Mahatma Gandhi,” H Fitzmaurice, the British Consul-General in Batavia, now Jakarta, wrote in a confidential letter to the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
“Dr Kodanda Rao, who called on me on arrival, showed himself actively interested in the welfare of Indians here,” Fitzmaurice added. “He is an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi, and in private conversation with me expressed criticism of the new Constitution, but, as far as I am aware, he has carefully refrained from any political activity, quite justifying his statement that he is a social and not a political worker.”
Rao was welcomed by the Dutch colonial administrators in what is now Indonesia as well as members of the Indian diaspora living there. He travelled around Java and gave a series of lectures on Eastern and Western civilizations. “During his visit he has, generally, made a very favourable impression among those with whom he has come in contact,” Fitzmaurice said.
Visits to other parts of the region, including Penang and Bangkok, also went well and without incident. The British in Malaya and the Siamese authorities in Bangkok respected the recommendations from Metcalfe and Gandhi and found no reason to be suspicious of Rao’s motives.
The Indian social activist, who had sent letters to the French authorities in Hanoi and the British Consul General in Saigon a few months earlier, expected a similar welcome in Indochina. But that was not to be.
French distrust
While detained in Cambodia, Rao showed the police two letters. The first was the message he had sent to the British Consul General in Saigon and the second was a missive he had received from the director of the Central Tourist Bureau in Saigon that expressed appreciation for the purpose of his visit and offered assistance. Neither letter helped.
“I explained that, following my usual practice in such matters, I had, in the first instance, written to the Governor General, and that, inasmuch as that letter was acknowledged by the Director of the Central Tourist Bureau, I addressed all subsequent letters to him, and not to the Governor General,” Rao wrote.
The social activist also had in his possession an invitation from the Australian prime minister’s secretary to visit Canberra as a state guest, as well as invitation letters from the ambassadors of Japan and China in Washington DC.
“I repeatedly suggested that the Police authorities should get in touch with the British Consulate in Saigon, or give me facilities to do so over the phone,” Rao wrote. “I was informed that the Police had already tried to do so, but had learnt that the British Consul General in Saigon had left office about 3 pm that day, and that, therefore, nothing more could be done in this matter.”
The order to deport Rao had come directly from Hanoi as the authorities were deeply suspicious of his motives. The police in Phnom Penh asked Rao to take the first train the next morning for Mongkol Borey and then proceed to Bangkok.
The police in Phnom Penh refused to give a reason for Rao’s deportation, so he insisted on a written order. “A written order was then sent for from the Resident Superior, with whom the Police Commissioner was in touch over the phone, and a copy of it was typed out while I waited and duly served on me,” Rao said.
The colonial authorities told Rao that he was not under arrest and was free to go to a hotel for the night. They said he could communicate with friends in Saigon, but not in Phnom Penh. Following the order, Rao sent a telegram to the British Consul General saying, “Under instructions from Hanoi, local police ordered my deportation stop taking tomorrow morning train en route Bangkok stop kindly inform Indian friends.”
“I left Phnom Penh at 6 am on the 11th and reached Bangkok on the 12th afternoon,” Rao wrote later in the memorandum. “On the 13th inst. I reported the incident to the British Minister, the British Consul General and the French Vice Consul in Bangkok.” Rao added that the French police inspector in Phnom Penh was “very courteous” to him.
British enquiry
The Secretary of State in London, concerned over the fallout in India, looked into Rao’s deportation and requested the Consul General in Saigon, JD Hogg, to clarify what happened.
Hogg, who was highly critical of Mahatma Gandhi, said that while he had received letters and a telegram from Rao, the authorities in India failed to inform him about the visit, as was the practice with important people. “I am at a loss to understand why I was not notified of Mr. Rao’s impending visit by the Government of India,” he wrote in a letter to the Foreign Office.
“It is not difficult to trace the circumstances that led up to the virtual expulsion from French Indochina of Mr. Kodanda Rao,” Hogg wrote. “The French authorities in this country are exceedingly nervous vis-a-vis the possibility of internal troubles, with which, in their minds, the name of British India is inseparably connected.”
The British diplomat said the contents of Rao’s communication to the French colonial authorities had made them even more suspicious. In his letter to the private secretary to the governor of Saigon, Rao had asked for “information regarding the number of British Indians in French Indochina, men and women, boys and girls of school age, their political, social and economic conditions, educational facilities, immigration facilities and restrictions and their occupations”.
Hogg said the French felt they were just putting two and two together and ensuring they did not take risks.
“A gentleman arrives from India, bearing a sheaf of documents, all in English, and therefore largely unintelligible, save for the fact that one of them bears the signature of Mahatma Gandhi, trouble-formentor par excellence,” he said. “The gentleman from India, it is noted, has already requested the fullest particulars regarding the British Indians in French Indochina, including their ‘political connections.’”
Hogg refused to accept responsibility and laid the blame on both Rao and the colonial authorities in India: “The whole incident is regrettable and I can only suggest that future emissaries from British India who desire to be well-received in this country be preceded by a recommendation from the Government of India to his Majesty’s Consul General.”
Kodanda Rao did not make another attempt to visit Indochina when the region and India were under colonial rule. He continued to be a member of the Servants Society of India until 1958. He lived out his life in Bangalore, serving as the president of the Indian Council of World Affairs.
Ajay Kamalakaran is a writer, primarily based in Mumbai. His Twitter handle is @ajaykamalakaran.
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