Appreciation
R. P. PARANJPYE
Ex Vice Chancellor, Poona University
I WOULD like to join in the felicitations to our Chief Minister on the occasion of his 48th birth-day and to wish him a long life of health and happiness and many years of useful service to his country.
It is but right to recall that many entertained a certain amount of doubt when Mr. Chavan was, at a comparatively early age, called upon to shoulder the burden and responsibility of administering the State of Bombay in view of his little experience of public affairs till then. He was not known to the general public except as a devoted participant in the national struggle for freedom under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, but his practical experience as a man of affairs was relatively small, coming as he did from a small district town. But he has brilliantly removed all these apprehensions felt even by many of his friends, and has made the State of Bombay, and later of Maharashtra, the best administered and most progressive State in India.
Not the least of his many achievements is the creation of the State of Maharashtra by his steady, though necessarily silent, advocacy of the cause of Maharashtra in the highest quarters. Till the actual decision for the creation of the two States of Maharashtra and Gujarat could be announced, he had naturally to stand by the bilingual state in his public utterances, just as a belligerent, even when privately serving for peace, put on a brave front till the very last moment. It would be churlish therefore, to quote to his discredit his previous statements on the desirability of a bilingual state. A public man cannot lay all his cards on the table on every occasion, for his aims would then be easily frustrated. I am sure that he is even now doing his best to have the injustice done to Maharashtra on the border questions set right, and it is but fair that the public should strengthen his hands and not indulge ceaselessly in mere carping criticism. Mr. Chavan has, in my opinion, deserved the confidence of the public in view of his previous success.