Introduction
Manohar Lal was most probably the first Indian to secure a foreign training in economics, obtaining a first position in the Moral Sciences Tripos at Cambridge in 1903; he was a brilliant student who missed becoming a fellow of St John's College in the early years of the 20th century and was the first Indian to be offered an academic appointment in economics in the United Kingdom. In India, he was the first university professor of economics and the first person, Indian or European, to hold a university chair. He had a brilliant political career and was regarded as a very capable Minister of Finance at the provincial level. Yet, Manohar Lal, the subject of this paper, is little known to the present generation.
While the achievements after Independence of Indian economists at Cambridge are widely acknowledged, those of Indian economists trained in Cambridge earlier in the 20th century are not generally knownFootnote 2. This is not entirely surprising for young Indian economists know very little about the pioneers of the economics profession in India. They may have heard of public figures like Dadabhai Naoroji, RC Dutt, MG Ranade or GK Gokhale, none of whom, with the exception of Gokhale, could be described as full-time professional economists. Names of professional economists like Jehangir Coyajee or VG Kale, who did much of their major work before 1930, evoke little response today. However, economists of the pre-Independence period who continued to be active after Independence, for instance, AK Dasgupta, DR Gadgil, Gyanchand, PS Lokanathan, Radhakamal Mukherjee, VKRV Rao or CN Vakil, are better known.
In writing this paper on the life and career of Manohar Lal, a major problem has been the limited amount of material available on him in print and archival sources. It is therefore difficult to develop a narrative satisfactorily exploring different phases and aspects of his life. This in turn makes it difficult to adequately assess his contribution as an economist and as a public figure. I therefore focus on certain topics only. These include his stay in Cambridge up to January 1906, his career in India as an economist and as a lawyer and politician in the Punjab up to 1945. Finally, I attempt an assessment of the contributions of Manohar Lal.
Cambridge 1900–1906
Manohar Lal was born on 31 December 1879 in Fazilka, in the Ferozepore district of the Punjab. His father, Sital Pershad, was a tehsildar. He belonged to a commercial caste and came from a family with a tradition of government service.Footnote 3 He had his schooling in Fazilka and Ferozepore and then joined Forman Christian College in Lahore. He passed his MA in English securing the first position.Footnote 4
In 1900, he was awarded a Government of India scholarship and went to England where he joined St John's College, Cambridge. As a student in Cambridge, he won several awards. He was Foundation Scholar, McMahon Law Scholar and Brotherton Sanskrit Scholar, and secured a first position in the Moral Sciences Tripos in 1903.Footnote 5 Manohar Lal was the first Indian to secure a first position in the Moral Sciences Tripos, a course that preceded the Tripos in economics (which Marshall was instrumental in instituting in Cambridge in 1903). He won the highly prestigious Cobden Prize in 1904. He was awarded the Whewell Scholarship in International Law in 1903, which he held during 1904 and 1905, and was called to the Bar, Lincoln's Inn, in 1904. He also lectured at Cambridge as an external lecturer.
The Cobden Prize
The Cobden Prize was a very prestigious award given each year on the basis of an essay on one of the listed selected topics. The first of six topics for the 1904 Prize was ‘The Causes and Effects of Commercial and Industrial Trusts, and the Extent to Which It Is Possible and Desirable to Introduce Legislative Restrictions on Their Operations’. This was selected by Manohar Lal and his chief rival was DB Macgregor, who was later to become a Fellow of Trinity College and professor of economics at Oxford. Marshall supported both of them in this endeavour. He talked to both and left books for them in his dining room, to borrow or read.Footnote 6
The Prize was awarded to Manohar Lal and Macgregor received a ‘special commendation’. Significantly, Marshall, unlike the other two examiners, had been in favour of giving the Prize to Macgregor and a special commendation to Manohar Lal. In a letter to JC Tanner [letter 812] he stated that Lal's essay was ‘not remarkable for its originality’. It was a compact (132 typed pages) account of the present position of the Trust question and ‘a masterpiece of composition’. However, an Indian source, whose claim cannot be verified, states that Marshall described Manohar Lal's essay as a ‘fine piece of research work, deeply original, exhibiting care in exposition, showing fine balanced judgement, and striking power of expression.’Footnote 7 The Cobden Prize essay was never published and no copy appears to exist today.Footnote 8
The St John's Fellowship
Another major event relating to Manohar Lal's stay in Cambridge was a competition for an open fellowship at St John's College in 1905. The candidates included EA Benians, Manohar Lal and JWH Atkins. Manohar Lal had gone to India in 1904 but returned to Cambridge for the competition.
It has been possible to look more closely at this competition as the reports relating to it are preserved in the St John's archives. Manohar Lal's assessors were HS Foxwell of St John's and JS Nicholson of Edinburgh. Benian's assessors were Marshall and GJ Lapsley.
The essay submitted by Manohar Lal was entitled ‘Causes and Effects of Combinations and Suggestions as to Legislative Control’. In his report, Foxwell generally praised it, mentioning that it had already won the Cobden Prize. In his view both Manohar Lal and Macgregor had written papers of fellowship standard for the Cobden Prize, and pointed out that Macgregor's paper had subsequently secured him a fellowship at Trinity College. Foxwell's assessment was generally positive, for he believed that Manohar Lal's essay gave ‘promise of higher work to follow’. He however noted, ‘originality is not so marked in the paper as sound judgment . . .’
Nicholson was less impressed. Earlier, as an assessor of Manohar Lal's Cobden Prize essay, he had placed it above Macgregor's essay and praised its use of the English language. The paper, he now claimed ‘cannot be said to shew constructive or even critical originality’. ‘If originality is not essential, I should think the writer worthy of a Fellowship’. He also suggested, with amazing foresight, that the author would probably have a successful career in law or any branch of public service.Footnote 9
Marshall praised Benians' ‘Essay on the Settlement of Canada’. In his view ‘it reaches beyond the standard which may generally be expected of successful Fellowship theses and gives hope that he may become a distinguished member of staff of the University’.
However, he also noted several weaknesses, especially on style.Footnote 10 The other assessor, GJ Lapsley, was much more negative. He described the work as not original, clever rather than scholarly, with serious structural faults, and with a carelessly prepared bibliography.Footnote 11
Neither Manohar Lal nor Benians succeeded that year and the fellowship was awarded to JWH Atkins on the basis of his essay discussing the ‘Owl and the Nightingale’, a poem in early transition English. Benians tried again next year and won a fellowship; he rose to become Master at St John's.
This was certainly Manohar Lal's last attempt. Manohar Lal also appeared to have been offered a professorship at Cardiff University in 1905, but he could not take it as he had to return to India.Footnote 12 According to the biographical sketch, which appeared after his death, ‘he was offered Professorship in one of the modern Universities in England but was unable to accept owing to his father's serious illness, which required his immediate presence at home’.Footnote 13
He returned to India to become principal of Randhir College in Kapurthala, a princely state in the Punjab. In a letter to JC Tanner, his college tutor, Manohar Lal revealed that the appointment was not to his taste. ‘Domestic troubles had told severely upon me in a pecuniary way. I am not sure, however, if I shall hold the post long.’ Footnote 14
Marshall and Manohar Lal
He was a favourite student of Alfred Marshall and maintained contact with him after his return to India. A number of letters written between them are reproduced at different places, although some of the originals are no longer traceable. There are also some letters from Marshall to others, which refer to, or relate to, Manohar Lal. It should be mentioned here that Marshall corresponded not only with Manohar Lal but also with a number of other Indians, including Abdullatif Camruddin Abdul Latif,Footnote 15 BB Mukherji, Jehangir Coyajee and JC Sinha.Footnote 16
The letters to Manohar Lal from Marshall include a letter dated 28 January 1909 [letter 935],Footnote 17 in which Marshall expressed his views on protection and tariff reform. This appears to be a reply to a letter from Manohar Lal enclosing a press cutting. Unfortunately, Manohar Lal's letter, the cutting and part of Marshall's reply cannot be traced.Footnote 18 I would guess that the press cutting was from an Indian paper interpreting one of Marshall's memoranda to claim that he favoured the adoption of a protectionist policy in India. Marshall, undoubtedly aware that any pronouncement by him on the Indian case for protection would be used in public debates in India, did not explicitly oppose the Indian cotton excise duties, but grudgingly accepted that their proceeds might be used to support genuine infant industries, i.e. not cotton textiles. At the same time, perhaps as a diversionary tactic, he chose to stress his view that the unwillingness of educated Indians to do manual tasks (rather than the lack of protection) lay at the root of her problems.Footnote 19 This exchange of letters predated Manohar Lal's appointment in Calcutta.
There is a second letter from Marshall to Manohar Lal, dated 22 February 1911, again on the topic of protection and free trade in relation to India [letter 999]. The original of this letter, and of the letter to which it was a reply, cannot be traced. We may assume that Manohar Lal must have described his teaching work at Calcutta. We know that in his university lectures, Manohar Lal focussed not only on Marshall's writings but on the writings of others as well, including the German Historical School, which advocated protection as a national policy.Footnote 20 Perhaps, Manohar Lal was asking Marshall for a clear statement of his position on Indian development, which could then be contrasted with other views. In the event, Marshall did not oblige.
Several letters of Marshall, referring to Manohar Lal, indicate the close relation between them. These include a letter [letter 752] from Marshall to HS Foxwell, his colleague and close associate, dated 29 June 1903. In this letter, Marshall mentioned leaving materials in his dining room on the subject of Trusts for the use of Macgregor and Lal who were preparing essays for the Cobden Prize. Again in a letter [letter 812] to JR Tanner dated 7 December 1904, Marshall discussed Manohar Lal in the context of the upcoming fellowship election at St John's and his success in winning the Cobden Prize. There is also a letter of 20 December 1904 to Frederick Macmillan [letter 814] recommending Manohar Lal's manuscript for publication.
These letters reveal, at times indirectly, Marshall's own assessment of Manohar Lal, who he must have known well as a student. There is little doubt that Marshall thought well of Manohar Lal. In his letter to Tanner [letter 812] he stated that Manohar Lal's Cobden essay was ‘excellent’ but not better than that of Macgregor's. In this he disagreed with the other two examiners, JS Nicholson and DA Thomas, MP. Marshall also indicated that he had thought ‘very highly’ of Manohar Lal when he tried to get him a fellowship at another college, and that his opinion of him had further risen, presumably after his Cobden Prize essay.Footnote 21 At the same time, while acknowledging his ‘very great intellectual force and openness of mind’, he believed he had not ‘got inside him completely’. He felt that Manohar Lal should stay on and lecture in England before returning to India.Footnote 22
In his letter [letter 814] to Frederick Macmillan in 1904, Marshall provided a favourable, but not ecstatic, assessment. Manohar Lal was ‘one of a group of natives of India who had competed with Englishmen under great disadvantage’ and had ‘achieved success’. Yet, he did not regard him as intellectually equal to Pigou, his favourite student and nominee to succeed him as professor. His work was ‘not the work of a great constructive thinker’ but it had ‘almost every other virtue’. He ended with the hope that Manohar Lal would end up doing a study of the economic possibilities of India, ‘as this subject has never yet been handled by a trained economist’. As we note in a later section, the Indian picture of Manohar Lal as Marshall's favourite student was probably an over-statement of the true position.
Unfortunately, we know very little about Marshall's links with Manohar Lal after he left Cambridge. Apart from Marshall's letters in 1909 and 1911, in which Manohar Lal's letters are missing, and the letter from Marshall to Lord Minto (which I have not traced) there is no evidence of further correspondence, except for a letter of 29 November 1920 from Marshall, addressed to Jehangir Coyajee and sent through Manohar Lal.Footnote 23
Economist in India
Minto Professor
We know almost nothing of Manohar Lal's life when he was a college principal. In 1909 he was appointed as the first Minto Professor of Economics in Calcutta University. NK Sinha in his biography of Ashutosh Mookerjee, describing the creation of the chair, observes that the vice-chancellor of Calcutta University ‘could persuade the administration of Lord Minto to establish a university chair in economics and to associate it with the name of Minto’.Footnote 24
A biographical sketch of Manohar Lal suggests that in 1909 ‘on a strong appeal from Professor Marshall’, he took up the position.Footnote 25 Again, Radhakamal Mukherjee, the well-known Indian economist and a student, mentioned that Manohar Lal was appointed as a result of a personal letter from Marshall to Lord Minto.Footnote 26 So, Marshall was apparently instrumental in Manohar Lal's securing this prestigious post, which could easily have gone to a European—as indeed it did briefly when he resigned in 1912 and was succeeded by CJ Hamilton.Footnote 27
Manohar Lal was both the first person in India to hold a university professorship in any subject and the first university professor of economics in India. Gilbert Slater, who was appointed professor of Indian economics at Madras University in 1915, mentions that the policy of appointing university professors was a recent innovation. According to him,
the new departure of calling upon Universities in their corporate capacity to take a separate part in the work of teaching was taken by the Imperial Government of India, in response to an Indian demand, due to the widespread feeling that the existing system tended to be wooden; that it made no provision for research, and tended to reduce university education to a little more than the mere cramming of text-books and lecture notes. The Indian Government has accordingly provided grants to be made available to such universities as submitted approved schemes for using the money in the directions desired. The earliest schemes submitted and approved were those of Calcutta and Allahabad; both provided for the appointment of Professors of Indian Economics.Footnote 28
In Calcutta University Ashutosh Mookerjee created the first university teaching departments and chose outstanding individuals from different parts of India to fill these posts. Some years later, when opening the College of Science, he noted with pride that of the six professors ‘fully one-half come from provinces other than Bengal’.Footnote 29 Prior to Manohar Lal's appointment in 1909, there were many ‘professors’ in India, but they held college posts. By 1923 several universities, including Aligarh, Allahabad, Benares, Bombay, Dacca, Lucknow, Madras, Mysore, Nagpur, Patna and the Punjab had appointed university professors of economics.Footnote 30
As a teacher, Manohar Lal appears to have been very popular. His students included Dr Rajendra Prasad, later President of India, and M Azizul Haque, Minister of Education in Bengal as well as a number of students who would later distinguish themselves as economists, including Radhakamal Mukherjee and Brij Narain. Azizul Haque, who was later to recall, regarded his lectures on Indian economics as memorable,
I had the honour of getting my first lessons in Indian Economics as a student of his, about a quarter of century back . . . I still visualize and remember (him) making his rapid survey of Indian Economics in the course of four lectures—one of the most brilliant expositions I have ever heard.Footnote 31
Radhakamal Mukherjee recalled later that these lectures stressed the importance of diversification of the Indian employment pattern, which had been underlined by the Famine Commissions. What is perhaps more significant were Manohar Lal's lectures on classical economics and on the German Historical School (which advocated protection for national development), both of which appeared to have influenced the young Radhakamal Mukherjee.Footnote 32
Jehangir Coyajee, professor of political economy at Presidency College, Calcutta recalled that he had shared an apartment with Manohar Lal and also had an informal arrangement to share university teaching with him. He mentioned that they had long discussions and that Manohar Lal had a fine economics library.Footnote 33
Manohar Lal left his professorship in 1912 and returned to Lahore to practise law. The reasons for leaving Calcutta University are not clear. According to GC Chatterjee, who claimed to have known him from the early 1920s, it was the ‘restricted opportunities available for University teachers in India at the time he began his career’, which drove him out of teaching, ‘first to the profession of law for which he never had any real taste and later to politics’.Footnote 34
This explanation is not convincing. Many years later in a letter in March 1927 to Jehangir Coyajee, Manohar Lal wrote
Yes, I too remember the good old days at Calcutta, and also my fortunate or unfortunate severance from the Professorship in the University. Since then one has passed through many vicissitudes of fortune and though actually the Minister of Education, I cannot really think of the old days without a real pang. There is a charm about professorship, which no other calling in life can equal, and particularly so when one can combine it with occasional serving on Royal Commissions. I consider you a very lucky man, at once a Professor and a wielder of real influence in public life.Footnote 35
The circumstances of this ‘unfortunate severance’ remain unclear. Manohar Lal's regrets, expressed in the above letter may, however, have reflected not only his giving up an academic life, but also his rejection of membership of the Indian Fiscal Commission on pecuniary grounds.Footnote 36
Links with the Economics Profession After 1912
Even after he left Calcutta, Manohar Lal maintained his interest in economics. He was a member of the Indian Economic Association and attended several of its annual conferences; he contributed to the first volume of the Indian Journal of Economics, published in 1916 and was the president of the Association at the Dacca Conference in 1935. He had been given the title of Lecturer in Political Economy and Fellow of the Punjab University in 1908.Footnote 37 He was also for a while on the board of economic enquiry in the Punjab.
His published works in economics are sparse. His Cobden Prize essay was never published and cannot be traced. His paper in the Indian Journal of Economics, entitled ‘Thoughts on India's Economic Position’, read very well, made a number of good points about poverty, ignorance and lack of resources, but was by no means a major piece of research.Footnote 38 His presidential address to the All-India Economic Conference in Dacca in 1935 was again an interesting general account of the economic situation and prospects but not very original. Both these pieces were written after he left academia and yet reflected his wide reading and deep understanding of broader forces affecting Indian development.
There were several other occasions when Manohar Lal participated in meetings and discussions with economists. In a few instances he clearly expressed his views. In a discussion in 1931 on a paper presented to the Indian Economic Association on the match industry, he expressed the view that in the matter of protection he would not feel justified, as an economist, to shut out foreign enterprise in India if it was to the consumers’ good. Another distinguished Indian economist, VG Kale, disagreed and argued that both producer and consumer interests should be considered.Footnote 39
Another opportunity to express his views came during a discussion at the Patna Conference of the Association in 1934. Manohar Lal was not a minister at that time and spoke quite frankly when opening the debate on rural indebtedness. He expressed the view that recent legislation to relieve rural indebtedness had not addressed causes, but had merely provided palliatives.
It has been forgotten that the village moneylender is an essential part of the village economy and while his position has been steadily deteriorating, the gap caused in rural credit has by no means been even partially filled by the expansion of cooperative credit or the institution of land mortgage banks. Another feature of legislation, particularly in the Punjab, has been to pitch the rate of interest at a standard where the lender could not find it possible to furnish the necessary loans . . . . A mere student of economics unconcerned by the weight of party politics, could not fail to observe how political and sectional majorities are already using their position in emphasising their parties’ views and make no secret that their object is to make borrowing impossible by the agriculturists. We, as economists, cannot but recognise that while borrowing and lending may be pernicious as mere private individuals, no production is possible without an efficient credit system. Freeze credit and you destroy industry and impair agriculture.Footnote 40
As an economist and a thinker on social problems, he believed that industrialisation, especially the development of heavy industry, was a necessity for India. He was sceptical of the role of cottage industries and felt that without real industrialisation there could be no real political advancement and no lasting independence was possible without adequate capacity for defence. The main problem before the country, he stated in an interview, was industrialisation and a balanced economy. The next major need was not economic, it was to find a solution to the communal problem.Footnote 41
Even after he became a lawyer and politician, Manohar Lal maintained his links with Punjab University. He also continued to read a wide range of books in several languages and to maintain and expand his library. He appeared to have kept in touch with economists in Lahore and elsewhere. According to WH Myles, professor of economics at Punjab University, Manohar Lal had been the secretary of the urban section of the Punjab Board of Economic Enquiry, but that he had later resigned.Footnote 42
The esteem in which Manohar Lal was held in the Punjab and elsewhere may be seen in the fact that his advice was taken on the appointment of the first lecturer of economics in St Stephen's College, Delhi in 1921. Having decided to appoint an economist, principal Rudra consulted Manohar Lal, who recommended KC Nag, a young man who was teaching economics at the DAV College, Lahore.Footnote 43 Again, indicating the regard with which the economics profession held him, Fergusson College, Poona invited him to preside over the silver jubilee of its History and Economics Association in 1941 and to present a specially prepared volume to Professor VG Kale.Footnote 44
One of his students, Brij Narain, was a distinguished economist who went to Calcutta from Lahore in 1911 in order to study with him; he returned to Lahore and was actively engaged in research and teaching. In his preface to his book, Essays on Indian Economic Problems, Part I, published in Lahore in 1922, he acknowledged ‘the encouragement and guidance’ of his old teacher, Manohar Lal, who ‘read the whole manuscript of the book and criticised it . . .’
Politician, Lawyer and Statesman
Jail
On his return to Lahore, Manohar Lal made his mark in public life as a barrister at law. He became vice-president of the High Court Association, a member of the Council of the National Liberal Foundation of India and president of the Forman College Graduates’ Association. From 1916 he was a trustee of the trust that ran the popular English newspaper, The Tribune. He was to remain a trustee until his death in 1949.
During the disturbances of 1919, he was arrested perhaps on account of his being a leader of the bar association and a trustee of The Tribune. According to MR Jayakar, ‘there was no warrant, nor was he made aware of the charge on which he was arrested. He had only two minutes to take leave of his wife and children.’Footnote 45
In their minority report to the Committee on Disturbances in Bombay, Delhi and the Punjab, appointed by the government in 1920, Jagat Narain, CH Setalvad and Sultan Ahmed noted that ‘Manohar Lal was arrested apparently because he was one of the trustees of the paper, The Tribune’. He was ‘arrested and handcuffed and kept in the Lahore Jail for about a month and released without being brought to trial.’Footnote 46 The majority report, without endorsing the details provided in the minority report, noted that the Government of India considered the arrest of Manohar Lal and some others as ‘a serious error’, and were ‘constrained to express their disapproval of the action taken in these cases.’Footnote 47
A recent paper cites Manohar Lal's testimonyFootnote 48 in the case of Sir C Sankaran Nair vs. Sir Michael O'Dwyer, heard in the United Kingdom in April–June 1924. He testified that he had been arrested because, according to the statement made to the Hunter Committee by the Punjab Chief Secretary, Sir Edward Thompson, he was a trustee who took interest in The Tribune's editorials, and because of some other idea that he was mixed up in the conspiracy. He had been held in confinement for six weeks without trial.
His arrest without warrants and jail without ever being charged must have shaken Manohar Lal's faith in British's fair play. Yet, there is no evidence of this. He remained pro-British and even continued to maintain good relations with British officials later on when he was a minister in the provincial government. A possible exception to this was the interest he was reported to have shown in the fate of political prisoners.Footnote 49
Political Career
In 1920 Manohar Lal became a member of the provincial legislature from the university constituency. He had no personal following but was, to begin with, a nominee of Raja Narendra Nath, a leader of the urban Hindus.Footnote 50 Governor Hailey, replacing Chhotu Ram of the Unionist Party, appointed him Education Minister in 1927. He continued as Minister of Education until 1931. He returned to the Unionist-led government as Finance Minister in 1937 and continued until 1945 when the government fell. He lost in the 1945 election.Footnote 51
Manohar Lal was widely respected as a minister. Some sections of Indian opinion credited him with having expanded education during his tenure as Education Minister and for having checked what was described as the ‘communalistic’ policies of his predecessor, Fazli-i-Hussain.Footnote 52 Later, he was also credited, as Finance Minister, with improving the salary scales of the subordinate educational service.Footnote 53
Independent evidence of Manohar Lal's skilful handling of Punjab's finances may be had from PJ Thomas’ analysis of federal finance in India. Looking at ‘nation-building services’ and including here education, medical and public health, agriculture, veterinary services, industries, cooperation and scientific departments, Thomas concluded that among the provinces in 1939–1940, Punjab had one of the highest per head annual expenditures of Rs. 1458 on nation-building services. Again, the share of these services in total expenditure in the Punjab rose from 26.98% in 1937–1938 to 28.83% in 1939–1940, placing it among the highest shares reported for different provinces in that year.Footnote 54
ML Bharadwaj, journalist, was probably expressing Indian opinion in the early 1940s when he said that Manohar Lal had ‘earned the gratitude of the province for his able stewardship of the finances’. While coping with the impacts of natural disasters in some areas, large irrigation projects like the Haveli were completed or taken up without a single year of real deficit. The bold scheme of Special Development Fund was given practical shape and funds on a larger scale than ever before were made available for beneficent departments.Footnote 55
British opinion was also generally favourable. Manohar Lal won repeated praise from Craik and later Governors of the Punjab. Craik was ‘considerably impressed’ by the ‘courageous and statesmanlike view that my Ministry took of the situation [the famine in south-east Punjab] and also of the able and lucid exposition of the financial situation by the Finance Minister, Mr Manohar Lal.’Footnote 56 According to Craik, ‘Mr Manohar Lal has shown great skill and a gift of lucid exposition. His views on public finance are conservative and sound and he is not in the least inclined to indulge in such “stunts” as prohibition.’Footnote 57
Manohar Lal's presentation of the budget won praise. Craik described his speech as ‘very lucid’ and ‘reassuring’. In spite of heavy expenditure on famine relief he had by a variety of fiscal measures managed to maintain budgetary balance without imposing new taxes. The budget was ‘popular’ and Manohar Lal had proved to be ‘an extremely able and sound guardian of our provincial finances.’Footnote 58
Craik's successor, Sir Bertrand Glancy, provided an even more detailed appraisal. He noted that Manohar Lal was ‘not in the least in sympathy with legislative measures directed against the urban classes, to which community he belongs himself. As Minister of Finance he may be said to have been eminently successful . . .’Footnote 59 In his note of 21 July 1943, he observed that he ‘continues to prove a highly successful Finance Minister, though he can scarcely claim credit for bounteous rains and abnormally favourable prices.’Footnote 60
While he was generally well regarded by successive governors of the Punjab, British reports on him were not always favourable. In January 1938, when Manohar Lal held the additional portfolio of Jails, AW Emerson, Governor of the Punjab reported to the Viceroy, Lord Linlithgow that ‘he was interesting himself in some of the so-called political prisoners, and he had made recommendations in regard to some of them which the Premier, I think, will not be able to accept . . .’Footnote 61
Again in a later report, Emerson mentioned that some members of the Council of Ministers, ‘certainly Mr Manohar Lal, are inclined to raise a difficult academic query as to what constitutes subversive propaganda.’Footnote 62 HD Craik wrote to Lord Brabourne, Governor of Bengal, in July 1938 complaining that Manohar Lal ‘is inclined to press proposals for the release of “political” prisoners.’Footnote 63
As a minister, he apparently did not favour legislative measures aimed at releasing cultivators from the clutch of moneylenders. This may have reflected the views of his support base, i.e. urban Hindus and the fact that he was a member of a commercial caste. In 1938, Craik noted that Manohar Lal was ‘not really in sympathy with the legislative measures put forward by the Ministry with the objective of releasing the cultivator from the clutches of the moneylender’, but he had not voiced at Cabinet meetings ‘any opposition to these measures.’Footnote 64 As we have shown earlier, at the Patna Conference of the Indian Economic Association in 1934, Manohar Lal provided economic reasons to argue that the proposed regulatory measures would damage the market for credit and not help the agriculturist.Footnote 65 Whether these economic arguments reflected his socioeconomic background and class interests is an open question.
Despite these criticisms, Manohar Lal appears to have been a very successful finance minister, liked by the British authorities and respected by his colleagues and many of his compatriots. Several honours came his way. He was chosen to represent the country as a member of the delegation to the League of Nations in 1939 and was knighted in 1941.
After Partition, Manohar Lal moved to Ambala and helped to revive The Tribune, of which he was a trustee for 33 years. He did not keep good health and did not hold public office. He died in the Cecil Hotel in Ambala on 1 May 1949.
Assessments of Manohar Lal
During the course of his life and immediately after his death, a number of assessments of Manohar Lal have been made. Obviously, these assessments may not always be accurate and could reflect personal biases on the part of the assessor. Also, there is a tendency in India to write eulogies on the death of a person, rather than attempt a balanced assessment of the contributions made. Still it is interesting to look at the assessments I have been able to locate and see whether they help us to build a picture of the man.
The eulogies in The Tribune dwelt on several qualities of Manohar Lal. He was remembered as a great Education Minister and Finance Minister, as a great scholar, as a refugee who, in spite of his illness, sought to help others, and as a great talent that was not tapped by independent India. He was described as a ‘quiet, hard-working gentleman and a charming host.’Footnote 66 Many admirers noted his linguistic skills: he had a good knowledge of several European languages including Greek, Latin and Italian. He was a well-read person. There were several references to his personal library, which must have been quite remarkable.Footnote 67 He was, however, shy and was regarded by some as a snob. There is little doubt that he was a good speaker and several persons, including provincial governors who worked with him, mentioned this. His speeches were often described as ‘lucid’. His students also attested to his scholarship and skills as a lecturer.
Khushwant Singh, the eminent writer, in his famous short story, ‘Karma’ casts him as an Anglophile. The main character, Sir Mohan Lal, is based on Manohar Lal and is described as a product of Balliol College, Oxford and very English in his ways. This does not prevent him from being thrown out of the first-class compartment by British soldiers on a train in British India.Footnote 68 One may compare this with his real-life experience of being imprisoned without trial by the British authorities, in violation of the canons of justice that he had learnt in England. Yet, as I have noted earlier, the experience in 1919 does not appear to have made him overtly anti-British in later years.
Sir Penderel Moon, the well-known administrator and historian, who met Manohar Lal in Simla around Partition, further confirmed this. According to Moon, Manohar Lal was ‘deeply steeped in English culture and English habits of thought and action.’ He appeared to be very unhappy at the departure of the British from India. ‘The world which he had known was collapsing around him.’Footnote 69
Rana Jung Bahadur Singh, journalist and former editor of The Tribune, was his harsh critic. He claimed that Manohar Lal was very friendly with several Indian princes, including the ruler of Faridkot, and that he tried to silence Singh when he wanted to write attacking them. He also blamed him for creating a situation whereby Singh had to leave the newspaper.Footnote 70
A Scholar among Politicians
For much of his life, Manohar Lal was a scholar who chose to live and work among politicians and administrators. He gave up an academic career to become a lawyer; his involvement in the national movement was brief and probably not by choice, and, as a politician, he was ‘an academician, rather than a warrior’, who was ‘content to seek relief from practical politics in the study of pure economics.’Footnote 71
Manohar Lal stood first in the Moral Sciences Tripos, a great achievement for Indians. He had beaten Macgregor, a Cambridge don and a future professor at Oxford, to win the prestigious Cobden Prize.Footnote 72 Indian eulogists were probably unaware of the close nature of this victory and Marshall's vote in favour of Macgregor. He missed becoming a Cambridge don, but had been offered a university professorship at Cardiff, which again placed him on par with illustrious British academics. Finally, he had achieved the signal honour of being the first Indian to hold the prestigious Minto professorship.
While India had produced several major writers in the field of economics before 1900, they had not directly interacted with western economists. Manohar Lal was the first direct bridge between India and the British academic economics community. He was well regarded by Cambridge academia and widely reckoned in India as an authentic interpreter of Marshallian economics, having direct access to its source. Also he had corresponded with his teacher, Alfred Marshall,Footnote 73 regarded by many as the greatest economist of his generation, and it was believed that Marshall had recommended him for the Calcutta chair.
It was said, no doubt with some exaggeration, that his name was a ‘household word in educated India.’Footnote 74 According to an article on him published in 1944, ‘He stood forth among his contemporaries as one endowed with keenness of mind and care in scientific judgement, qualities which won him high regard among Cambridge scholars.’Footnote 75 Even Sir Penderel Moon, not one of his admirers, when describing their meeting in Simla in 1947, chose to mention that Manohar Lal was reputed to have been one of Marshall's favourite students.Footnote 76
In many ways, Manohar Lal, with his brilliant Cambridge background, could have contributed significantly to Indian economic analysis and policy. He had the training as well as the credentials, but he did not stay the course. His Cobden Prize essay was never published and during the short period of about four years as a university professor, he did not produce any research work that was worth noting. Perhaps, as Nicholson had surmised, he lacked originality and was better suited to a career in law or public service. Foxwell also noted this lack of originality, but stressed his ‘sound judgement’ and his expository skills.
He missed a major opportunity to influence economic policy when he declined the membership of the Fiscal Commission, choosing instead to continue with his (probably more lucrative) legal practice, for which he had no great attachment. His involvement in the national movement was not active; he certainly did not court arrest. He happened to be a leader of the lawyers’ association and his close association with The Tribune was widely known. No evidence of his involvement in any conspiracy was ever unearthed. Nevertheless, his arrest and subsequent release boosted his image.
During his active involvement in Punjab politics he gave the impression of being a reluctant participant,Footnote 77 successfully holding high political office for several years. His past academic achievements in the eyes of his compatriots, and his wide reading and knowledge of many subjects helped to project him as a scholar and academician among a bunch of politicians. He used this and his undoubted ability as substitutes for the independent political base that he lacked.
One might speculate that if Manohar Lal had kept to economics, he might have contributed more towards development in India. Such counterfactual propositions are always difficult to establish. As a teacher he would no doubt have contributed greatly, especially working in tandem with Coyajee, another Marshall student; as a researcher, perhaps he would not have done much original work. Yet, he would have been heard with respect by the government and the intellectual community on all issues relating to Indian economic policy. At the same time, his interchanges with Marshall indicate that his ability to influence British academic thinking on India was extremely limited.
As I have attempted to show, Manohar Lal was an outstanding student, but his research output was not impressive. He was probably a brilliant teacher, but he only taught for a few years. He was a successful, if reluctant, politician and made a great impact while holding important ministerial positions at the provincial level. I would place him among the select group 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.
