Mahatma Gandhi, who transformed into a ‘half-naked fakir’ in Madurai on September 22, 1921, was not the only leader of the freedom movement to shun western habits and identify himself with the masses. Joseph Chelladurai Cornelius, popularly known as J. C. Kumarappa, the ‘London Dorai,’ also renounced his western past and took to ‘dhoti jama,’ made from a four-yard veshti , after he met Mahatma Gandhi at Sabarmati Ashram on May 9, 1929.
Though born in Thanjavur on January 4, 1892, in a pious Christian family, Kumarappa spent the last leg of his life in south Tamil Nadu, settling down in T. Kallupatti near Madurai. He was a true Gandhian for whom development always meant “pro-nature and pro-people,” recalls K. M. Natarajan, chairman, Tamil Nadu Gandhi Smarak Nidhi, his associate. Apart from “modernising” village tools like the potter’s wheel and kerosene lantern, he was for production by the masses and consumption by the masses. He always printed his books on handmade paper and insisted that his body should be burnt using cow dung cakes and not firewood. As per his wishes, his ashes were used as fertilizer for the rose plants he grew around the Kumarappa Kudil at Gandhi Niketan Ashram in T. Kallupatti.
M. P. Gurusamy, secretary, Gandhi Museum, who calls himself ‘Kumarappadasan,’ compares Kumarappa’s meeting with Gandhi with the one between Ramakrishna Paramahamsar and Narendran (Swami Vivekananda). The west-educated man in a three-piece suit sat on mud floor for the first time on seeing Mahatma Gandhi with the spinning wheel at Sabarmati Ashram. Trusteeship was the hallmark of his accounting. While working with the Bihar Central Relief Committee for rehabilitation of earthquake victims in 1934, he refused to pass a bill for expenses incurred by the Mahatma as it exceeded the per diem .
Looking at the contribution of Dr. Kumarappa as an eminent economist, V. Ragupathy, Professor, Department of Political Science and Development Administration, Gandhigram Rural Institute, points out that Gandhi wanted him to be the first Finance Minister of free India but it never happened. Kumarappa, he says, was “disappointed by the Nehruvian model of centralised development and harshly spoke against the economic policies of the government. He was for the Gandhian model of decentralised economy. He was more concerned about the permanency and sustainability of ecological equilibrium of the planet than disorderly growth of GDP”
In his final years, he searched for a vibrant Gandhian centre for peaceful retirement and found Gandhi Niketan founded by his friend G. Venkatachalapathy. He always kept a farmer’s photograph in his room and called him ‘my master’s master.’
When he heard of the death of his brother J. M. Kumarappa, his blood pressure shot up and was admitted to the CSI Hospital here. K. Kamaraj got him shifted to the Government Hospital, Madras, where he breathed his last on October 30, 1960, the day of Mahatma Gandhi’s martyrdom.
