CE 30 PAiSE

at the dis-• > shameless

~ctions, theds, electri-mey gaina'• 0

lon of the1 comfort.e in thes victory,)0. And

dishear-be over-

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In West Bengal? The NewMore Regional AutonomY?

Confrontations With TheThe CIA And The

NoWStatesList

tion Analysis

Vol. 3: No. 22:: March 3, 1967

EDITOR: SAMAR SEN. PRINTED BYHIM AT MODERN INDIA PRESS,7 RAJA SUBODH MULLICK SQUARE,CALCUTTA-13 AND PUBLISHED BY HIMFOR NATION TRUST FROM 54 GANESH

CHUNDER AVENUE, CALCUTTA-13.TELEPHONE: 24-5713.

THEY HAVE DONE IT

7

4

21

THE people have done it. Despite the massive resources at the dis-posal of the Congress Government, despite the most shameless

attempt to bribe and seduce the voter on the eve of the elections, theverdict has gone against the old gang. Tubewells, pucca roads, electri-city, gratuitous relief-all the familiar baits-and the bags of money goinground in villages at midnight, all failed to sway the determination of thepeople to kick the potbellied out of their garden of leisure and comfort.And let us be grateful, for once, for the fact that most people in thecountryside do not read newspapers. These predicted a Congress victory,

1did all they could to spread confusion, defeatism and frustration. And8 thank God, the villagers do not read this weekly, which was so dishear-

10 tened by left disunity that it did not think the Congress could be over-whelmed.

11 That the people have done it despite this disunity over seats is ameasure of their maturity. The ground for this was prepared by the up-surges of last year during which the Left CPI became the spearhead ofthe opposition attack. The unity achieved during mass act.ion and theanti-Congress sentiment proved stronger than the effects of the subsequentelectoral maladjustment. Of course, the Congress defeat would have beenspectacular, as in Kerala Or Madras, had there been no split. On the otherhand, this division would perhaps have meant a Congress victory if theruling party itself had not been weakened by the emergence of BangIaCongress, which has done far better than the cyni~al expected. Anotherkey factor in this election was that for the first time most of the Muslims,in 24-Parganas at least, decided to have no truck with the Congress.They shed their nagging fear of the ruling party and decided to join the

. main stream against the Congress, a process which had started more thana year ago in 24-Parganas. Nurul Islam has not. died in vain. In mobi-lising the Muslim voter against the Congress, in asking him to hold hishead high and fear no one, Mr Humayun Kabir, his brother and theirco-workers and the left parties played a major role, much to the chagrinof Mr Atulya Ghosh. (

Strange, it is not even a week, but, like Hamlet.'s mother, we hadalmost forgotten Mr Atulya Ghosh, the evil genius of West Bengal whothought he had become an all-India colossus. And what about the ChiefMinister, who moved that infamous resolution against Mr Ajoy Mukherjeein the WBPCC meeting, a resolution in 'Which not a single charge ·wasmade against the then West Bengal Congress President? Mr Sen, let ushope, is ruminating on poetic justice after his defeat at Arambagh.

All is not sunshine, however. That Calcutta has returned so manyCongress candidates including some of the worst. opportunists, is a shame.Let us not be accused of leaning towards Lin Piao if we say that thecountryside, 24-Parganas particularly, has set an example to a sizable sec-tion in this city and in some towns. Let us, for once, be narodniks, prais-ing the peasants who trekked to the polling booth to exercise their once-in-five-years sovereignty.

The hour of rejoicing, however, should be over. The Congress hasleft behind a dirty mess. The two bullocks, not exploited to draw even a

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COMMENTSDELHI LETTER

AND Now THE DEAD-CENTRE

FROM A POLITICALCORRESPONDENT

THE DEBACLE IN BIHARRAMESH UPADHYAYA

CALCUTTA DIARY ..CHARAN GUPTA

A BRIEF ANALYSISBy POLLSTERS

THE CIA A D THE IN-TELLIGENTSIA-I

ROBI CHAKRAVORTITHE CIA AND THE IN-

TELLIGENTSIA-IIPHILIP C. ALTBACH .. 14

THAILAND-A MILITARYSPRINGBOARD

SHANKER GHOSHCHINA AND OUR

MA DARINSREVERSION To BARBARISM?-II

MONITORTHE PRESS

RETRIBUTION IN STATESMRINAL SEN'S LATEST

KIRONMOY RAHA 24NATANATYAM'S SANKAR

By A DRAMA CRITIC .. 25LETTERS 26

creaking cart or till the field, have lett~so huge a dung-heap tha~ it is difficult

to breathe. And tlle Congress isnot dead yet. It is a wounded snakewhich will try to bite the unwary.The bureaucracy will try to sabotageany far-reaching change. A. relent-less drive should now begin intown and village against the bureau-cracy, against entrenched interestswhich thrive on high prices, corrup-tion, starvation and the black market.In the difficult days ahead, food willnot be bountiful. It is time to setup all-party committees in villages towatch the hoarders so that theremight be equitable distribution evenat this late hour. There is not theslightest doubt that the vast majorityof the people will further tightentheir belts and put up with a regimeof austerity, based on equality ofsuffering, if the right call comes fromthe right men. If an appeal is madeto their sehse of honour and dignity,the people will go all out to achieveself-sufficiency. It will all depend onhow the non-Congress governmentfunctions. It will have the goodwishes and co-operation of all thosewho have shown a new sense of res-ponsibility in the elections. Thoughthey. have high hopes, they will notdemand manna overnight if the mennow coming to power can create inthem a feeling of participation in thedifficulties of decision-making.

Tempered RejoicingsThe general election has worked

.drastic changes in the political land-scape of India. The people have re-fused a fourth term to the Congressparty in seven marc States as they inKerala had done before. But muchmore spectacular than this defeat hasbeen the humiliation that the all-India leaders of the party have suffer-ed at the hands of the electorate.The caucus that ruled the party and,through an unsure and hesitantPrime Minister, the country has beendisgraced, and the syndicate is in ashambles. The party has developeda crisis in its highest echelon fromwhich it may not recover, for its un-tidy directors will not permit a newleadership to grow till the organisa-tion has disintegrated completely, asin Kerala.

It is I).O doubt some comfort thatthe bell has at last tolled for theCongress in half the States of Indiaand most of the party bosses. But

4

NOW

elation must be tempered withthe realisation that some of the forcesthrown up by the election are no lessretrograde than what they replace.In Madras the DMK has secured anabsolute majority, a distinction de-nied to any other party in the non-Congress States, Kerala not excluded.In Orissa the Swatantra party is ontop, and ~ Gujarat and Rajasthan ithas become the second biggest partyin the State assembly, though in theformer the Congress has an absolutemajority. In the Delhi TerritorialCouncil the Jan Sangh has securedan absolute majority, and in the twoHindi-speaking States of Uttar Pra-desh and Madhya Pradesh it is se-cond only to the Congress. In Pun-jab, another State where the Congresshas failed to get an absolute majo-rity, the Akali Dal of Sant FatehSingh dominates as the principalconstituent of a united front. InBihar, which is also lost to the Con-gress, the strength of the Jan Sanghin the assembly is not inconsiderable,though the second party is the SSP.A different picture is presented byKerala and West Bengal alone wherethe left is superior to the right para-ding under any name, though in thelatter the Swatantra and the TanSangh have made their first depior-able infiltration.

In their present predicament theCongress leaders will be eager to seekthe support of their rightist allies inStates where their party is in a mino-rity. This will hardly require any'ideological or programmatic compro-mise, for over the years the sIJcialismand secularism of the Congress havebeen so diluted as to make their dif-ference with the economic policy ofthe Swatantra and the revivalism ofthe Jan Sangh marginal. There is achance, not so remote as some wouldlike to think, of even an adjustmentbetween the three on the nationallevel so that coalitions on State levelsmay function smoothly. This wouldsolve the problems of the Congressin many States at least for the nextfive years. The Swatantra and theJan Sangh may be as willing toenter into such alliances to thwartall progressive forces, for they are noless inveterate in their hostility to-wards the left as the Congress is.Even in the absence of such alliancesthe left parties have little to rejoice

,at the electoral success of the right,though it has been at the cost of theCongress. A government of the Swa-

tantra or the Jan Sangh, separatelyor together, cannot be a better alter-native than the Congress; for all oneknows it may be worse. Now thatthe immediate objective of overthrow-ing the Congress in as many States aspossible has been achieved, the leftparties will have to turn their atten-tion to the menace of right reactionwhich has emerged out of the generalelection. Congress leaders will notallow any scruples to come in theway of converting their humiliationat the polls into a tactical victoryagainst the left with which alone,they know, the Congress cannot co-exist. For the left a harder battleis ahead.

The Federal StructureThirty years ago the Congress

party took office in seven provincesunder the Act of 1935 which pro-vided for a limited measure of pro-vincial ,autonomy; 20 years ago itformed a Government at the Centreas well. The change brought aboutin 1967 will revive, though in adifferent form and under vastly al-tered circumstances, some of thefundamental issues involved in thescheme which took shape in 1937.The most obvious difference derivesfrom what happened in 1947, but itis ,remarkable that even that majorchange has not resolved the most im-portant problem that was sought tobe tackled in 1937. Twenty yearsof Congress rule in independent In-dia have not unified the nation.Cultural or emotional unity has al-ways been largely a myth; even thefacade of political integration hascrumbled. In spite of its shakymajority, the Congress wilI still bein a position to retain Central con·trol. But what kind of control cana Congress Government at the Centreexercise-morally or in actual prac-tice-over a nation large parts ofwhich have refused to let the partyhave any further say in the adminis-tration of their own affairs? Onwhat authority can this Governmenttry to maintain strong Central con-trol over Kerala which has votedCommunist, Madras which has chosenthe DMK, Delhi which has welcomedthe cow-protectors, or Orissa whosepreference is largely Swatantra ? Evenin States such as West Bengal, Biharand Uttar Pradesh, where the non-Congress vote was shared by morethan one or two major winners, the

MARCH 3, 1967

rati

11

J~-~...,....,

I 3li' .v·~ '; •.,"_' ._,__~~-- .:,.. "~-'----- . . .-. ,

Congress party's right of strong fede-ral governance will be seriously ques-tioned.

A broad-based national Govern-ment at the Centre may be theoreti-cally attractive, but it is impossibleto see how it could work-even in theunlikely event of the Congress agree-ing to share Central authority withothers. There is a limit to politicalexpediency; the principal parties re-presented in Parliament are so remov-ed from one another in their ap-proach to national and internation-al affairs that a coalition Governmentcan have no common programme ex-cept one based on platitudes abouthonesty, efficiency and service. Canone, for example, conceive of a Gov-ernment with Mr Morarji Desai asPrime Minister, Mr Minoo Masanias Foreign Minister, Mr BalrajMadhok as Defence Minister, MrHiren Mukherji as Finance Minister,Mr Lohia as Education Minister,and perhap's Mr Ganesh Ghosh incharge of the Ministry of Home Af-fairs? Speculation on how such aGovernment would function could behighly entertaining. But the think-ing of men like Mr Rajagopalachariwho have been asking for a nationalGovernment might not, after all, beso bizarre. Perhaps they want a gov-ernment of like-minded people fromthe Congress, Jan Sangh and theSwatantra, the three largest partiesin the Lok Sabha. Just consider howtruly representative such a Govern-ment would be of the people ofKerala, Madras and 'Vest Bengal.

0, the idea of a national Govern-ment at the Centre, whatever mightbe its composition, makes no sense.Comparison with coalition Govern-ments in some States would be mis-leading. The non-Congress partiesin West Bengal, for example, can finda large enough common programmefor a coalition Government in theState's immediate economic and admi-nistrative tasks, such as effective foodprocurement and distribution andmeasures against corruption. Butfundamental policy differences willbe inescapable at the national level;no party can ignore or evade them~ith0l!t seriously compromising itsll1tegnty.

What then is the solution? Neithera Congress Government nor a Gov-ernm~nt of like-minded elements inParliament will be even broadly re,presentative of the nation as a whole;it could not therefore claim authority

MARCH 3, 1967 "

NOW

for strong federal control. If it did,it would be appropriate to recallwhat the Congress itself said aboutthe federal scheme evolved in Lon-don in the 1930's; the limited mea-sure for provincial autonomy was onlya partial answer to the Congress de·mand. Now the Congress will haveto deal with similar demands fromother quarters; both Mr Namboo-diripad and Mr Annadurai have al-ready urged greater autonomy fortheir' States and the demand will beraised in other parts of the countryas well. The feeling is so widespreadthat any attempt to ignore or repressit will generate further disconten tand disorder; a plan should beevolved as soon as possible to grantgreater autonomy to the constituentunits of the Indian federation. Thisneed not be a plan for disintegration;in fact, it can be the only step tocheck the process of disintegrationthat will set in if an unrepresenta-tive Central Government tries to en-force its writ all over the country.Much can be said for a strong Cen-tral Government in a nation that isunited, but the fact remains thatethnic and religious differences havealways kept India seriously divided.Administrative integration, under Bri-tish and Ccngress rule, has done littleto remove, or even to reduce, thesedifferences. The only force thatcould drown these differences' i~ aprogressive social, economic and poli-tical philosophy. While we musthope for the emergence of such a forcethroughout the country, we must alsorecognize present realities which makeit impossible to combine strong Cen-tral governance with the fundamen.tal requirement of popular repre-sentation.

The Pack-DrillHollywood, which created the star

system, today finds itself nearly des-troyed by it. Names came to be allthat mattered. pola Negri, MaryPickford, Greta Garbo, Ramon Na-varro, Marlene Dietrich, MarylinMonroe ... one could go on indefini-tely. Then came the showdown forshow biz; the importance of the storyand its treatment had meanwhilebeen forgotten. It may be wonderedwhether something very like it hasnot happened to the Congress Party.Mrs Indira Gandhi has indeed notbeen defeated; what they call thecharisma of Nehru apparently works

still. But look at the huge heap ofpolitical carcasses all over the place .•.••

Mr Kamaraj, the Congress Presi-dent, has to be mentioned first in anyorder of precedence, if only becausethe strong, silent man of the party,the undisputed leader of Tamilnad,has been humbled by an obscure stu-dent leader belonging to the DravidaMunnetra Kazhagam. The all-In-dia colossus, the supreme architect oftwo successIons to the prime minis-tership, apparently had feet of clayright in his own home dIstnct. Onthe west coast Mr Sadoba Patil, thedarling of some film stars, and ofWashington, the "finisher" of MrKrishna Menon, the "boss" if everthere was one, has fallen too with hisenemy. He had said that Mr KrishnaMenon could be selected for the Con-gress ticket only over his dead body.Mr Menon, whose fate, Izvestia said,would show which way India wouldgo, did not get the ticket and losthis seat; but somewhere around isthe dead body of Mr Pati!, an. un-gainly sight. Now, young man, go

, east, and see the unpretty corpse ofMr Atulya Ghosh, another king-mak-er, another strong man, though notall that silent, another member ofthe so-called "Syndicate". The Con-gressman who "thinks young", MrBiju Patnaik, is gone too. Air crashesare getting too frequent.

The roll call will take a little long-er. Mr K. B. Sahay, Chief Ministerof Bihar, has been defeated from twoconstituencies; the thought must becold comfort to him that he mighthave been defeated from sixteen. MrBhaktavatsalam, Chief Minister ofMadras, on whose name there is apun in Tamil which is too wellknown to require repetition, has goneunder too. Mr Gurmukh SinghMusafir, Chief Minister of Punjab, isout-as is Mr Prafulla Sen of WestBengal. .The Gandhi of Arambaghis said to have found a flat in P¥kStreet (south of, we take it) ; the newaddress itself may explain part of hisdefeat. Congressmen were gettingtoo "uppety". The defeat of Mr Nila-mani Routray is contained in the firstfour letters of his surname.

There is, however, no basis for thehope that" with the defeat of theFood Minister, Mr C. Subramaniam,and the Housing Minister, Mr MehrChand Khanna, there will now be(to adapt a Churchill ism on· Emma-nuel Shinwell) a plenitude of foodand that houses will now grow like

5

mushrooms. Even if it is to be held- against All India Radio and thePress Information Bureau that MrRaj Bahadur, Minister for Informa-tion and Broadcasting, has been de-feated, the Press in Calcutta may beshortsighted in rejoicing over the de-feat of Mr Tarun Kanti Ghosh; hewill now have more time to devote tohis papers. In Rajasthan Mr R. R.Morarka was perhaps his own execu-tioner. As Chairman of the Pl\.blicAccounts Committee, he did morethan most people to bring into theopen some of the darkest deals ofthe Congress Party; and now he hasgone down with the Congress. Theneed for the PAC's vigil, of course,

'remains.Mr Ajit Prasad Jain, the man who

would not be Governor, or so he says,has also been rejected. Now perhapshe would like a governorship, afterall. Mr Sachin Chaudhuri, UnionFinance Minister who was or wasnot responsible for devaluation /inJune last year, -was defeated by a re-markably large maiority; whether hewould now like the High Com. inLondon is unknown. It is, however,far more difficult to think of alterna-tive berths for Mr Sudhir Ray Chow-dhury and Mr Nepal Roy.

But the electorate's refusal to betaken for granted has not heen lessunkind to politicians of the non-Con-gress ~enre, whether true blue or deepred. The Swatantra Partv has scoredsignificant or sinister gains; but MrN. G. Ranga has !!one with the windlust the same. The Tan Sang-h has'been another beneficiary of the windof the rightward chang-e hlowingthrough the country: but some ofits victories are perhaps ncg-ativc-reflecting- discontent ag-ainst the Con-gyess rather than endorsement of theSangh's insensate ohscurantism; inplaces like Delhi the lack of an alter-native channelled anti-Cono-ress votesinte the Tolly's Nullah that is theJan San~h.

Nor was Mr Krishna Menon theonly victim of popular mistrust ofthe indeterminate prol!ressives in be-tween. Mr K. D. Malaviya will notbe he;:lrd in the next Lok Sabha;nor wil1 Mr Homi Daii, a fairlv deftraiser of dust or Q"ossamer. If MrSadhan Gupta of the CPT (M) lost,SO did Mrs Renn Chakravarti of theCPT. AmonQ" the "gonners" are alsoMr 1- B. Krinalani and Mr H. V.K"math, both very articulate MPswho were .often tatally wrangheaded,

6

specially on foreign policy, but re-lentless critics of the corrupt regimeof the Congr,ess. Voices of dissentare always t.o be preferred to the tribe.of what P. G. Wodehouse has called"nodders", a atste lower than "yes-men", men who are not allowed evento say "yes" but can only nod. Therefinement seems capable of exten-sion: What is one to think of thosewho have scraped through with ahandful of votes, against the majo-rity? Mr C. B. Gupta ofluttar Pra-desh romped home with a majority of70. Mr Ram Manohar Lohia's ma-jority did not exceed 500. Some gotin with less than of 20 per cent ofthe votes polled. The people havespoken all right; but the disc is crack-ed in too many places. When theneedle descends on it" the music isgoing to be full of discordant notes,perhaps not wholly untruthfully.

Not The EndThe news from Jakarta is all too

like a shadow play, many of whoseclues are missing. President Soekar-no's struggle for -political (and per-sonal) survival cannot be the wholestory. The President may have been,as reported, forced to surrender hisexecutive power to General Suharto.But this power at -present could notreally have been much. For sincethe abortive 1965 coup Dr So~karnohas been step by step deprived of hisonce-supreme authority. He is vir-

. tually a prisoner in his palace, hismovements strictly limited and his

- direct ,approach to the people seve--rely restricted. Even so, the rulingmilitary junta is fearful of his undi-minished popularity. This is the onlypower DJ1 Soekarno still possesses,and given a chance he could easilyrally popular support to upset themilitary junta's well-laid plans forputting Indonesia firmly into theWestern camp.

Not long ago the Indonesian Fo-reign Minister, Dr' Adam Malik, letout the secret; he warned that therewould be civil war if President Soe-karno refused to quit. Dr Malik hasbeen most active in winning back thefavours- of the Western Powers. Andas one reporf reveals, there are tempt-ing offers from the West to GeneralSuharto on condition that he quick-ly get rid of Dr Soekarno. Admitted-ly also, the military junta has hadclose connexions with the CIA ever

since President Soekarno set his faceagains,t the 'tVestern Powers. Formuch less an offence (I) Iran's Pre-mier, Dr Mosadiq, had been over-thrown by a CIA-organised coup.Indonesia also had been receiving theCIA's lavish attention long beforethe luckless Untung struck the des-perate blow to smash the pro-West-ern Generals' plot. It is also knownfrom American sources that on I theCIA's advice the U.S. Administrationhad continued providing aid to Indo-nesia, in spite of President Soekar-no's close relations with China. Manyof the Indonesian army leaders, brief-ed by the CIA and under the direc-tion of General Nasution, had beenbiding - their opportunity and thisthey seized in the fateful' September.October of 1965.

Yet with all their brutal and bloodyefforts to wipe out popular resistance,Generals Nasution and Suharto arestill unsure of their hold on the In-donesian people. The Communistshave been broken but are unbowed.Even the Army itself is divided in itssympathies. Not for nothing did DrAdam Malik speak of the loomingthreat .of a civil war. Already thereare outbreaks of violent conflict inCentral lava between the anti-Soekar-nites and the anti-American national-ist and left-wing forces. Significant-ly also, a sectjon of the Indonesianyauth is challenging the militaryjunta's hold over the so-called stu·dent movement against President

I Soekarno.President Soekarno has no doubt

committed many indiscretions. Buthis many marriages could hardly becalled one, in Indonesia of all places.Some of the over-selfrighteous Indo-nesian top brass are as much marriedand have been as extravaQ"ant asthe President. The fact is 'that DrSoekarno is still identified with apopular cause and is capable of chal-lenging and setting at naught thepro-Western plans of the Nasution-Suharto-Adam Malik gang. PresidentSoekarno's disgrace .or dismissal cantherefore settle nothing; the strug-gle in Indonesia will go on, in spiteof the temporary advantage GeneralSuharto enioys with the support andapproval of the Western colonialists.The aid and comfort Moscow stillextends to the milit.ary regime inIndonesia justly calls for a searchingstudy of this murky power-politicalgame.

MARCH 3, 1967

-"-

. ... . . ..

7

diripad and Mr Annadurai havebeen saying much the same things on-this), but what has not been appre-ciated so far is the depth of the anti-Centre feeling in both the States.Both suffer from a sense of remem-bered wrongs. 1£ rice proved theundoing of the Congress in Kerala,along with the shipyard agitation, astheir party men say, the blood bathof the anti-Hindi riots and the me-nacing prospect of domination by aHindi Centre have isolated the Con-gress in Madras.

In Kerala people have contemptfor the Congress and Mrs IndiraGandhi. The average voter whobacks the Communist parties has notforgotten that Mrs Indira Gandhi asCongress President engineered the"Liberation Struggle" and subvertedan elected Government. In Madrasthe people feel that the Congress isan instrument of North Indian domi-nation and the Madras Governmentdid not stand up to the Centre's poli-cies which were loaded against theSouth.

These are in addition to othermajor factors which caused the Con-gress defeat.

Where do we go from here then?Mr C. Subramaniam warned beforethe poll that a DMK-Ied Governmentin Madras would mean clashes withthe Centre. Mr E. M. S. N amboo-diripad had told this correspondentearly in February that if the Con-gress really lost five or six States asexpected, "anything was possible".The Congress Centre, surviving pre-cariously on a paper-thin marginlooking to right reaction for supportin any crisis, might reconcile 'itselfto rightist governments in Rajasthanand Orissa but would not teleratefor long the ministries in Kerala andMadras.

The DMK Ministry in Madraswould force the Hindi issue with theCentre. There is no constitutipnalor statutory guarantee for continueduse of English as an official languagewith associate status. The promiseto non-Hindi people made by MrNehru remains to be implemented.The composition of the new LokSabha would make impossible anylegislation on language to give effectto this assurance. The three-langu-age formula is a Congress innovationand if the State Government decidesto reject it in Madras, what can theCentre do?

In Kerala, the first major coufron-

Kerala wanted the Congress to winag~inst the DMK-Ied front in Madras.

Touring the Southern States twoweeKs before the poll, this correspon-dem came across enough evidence tosuggest that the two Unite? Fro~tsin Madras and Kerala provIded VIa-ble, resilient alternatives to the Con-gress, and non-Congress Ministriesin the two States were certain. Themass mood was in favour of a change.

Mr Kamaraj's defeat was anythingbut personal. An unknown DMKfunctionary, a student leader of the1965 anti-Hindi agitation, couldtrounce him in his home constitu-ency. Mr Kamaraj did not go downto any old political adversary of sta-ture. His was part of the total routof the Congress in Madras State. Ther~sults in Madras underlined thefailure of the national Press to re-port the truth about the Congressand Mr Kamaraj. Much has beenmade of the stable and efficient ad-ministration that obtained in Madras.It has always been there and thepeople owe this to themselves andnot to the Congress. Much wasmade of the fact there were no fac-tions in the Tamilnad Congress.This is yet another myth. Factionshave always been there since 1926.Mr Kamaraj's election as TNCC pre-sident over 20 years ago was a stag-gering triumph for his factionagainst Rajaji's. So the final victoryin Rajaji's private drama of venge-ance came last week. What providesan ironic footnote to it is that MrKamaraj had clandestinely abettedthe DMK's growth in Madras andhad promoted it in so many ways asa counter-weight against the Commu-nists. In 1954, this correspondenthad reported the by-election cam-paign in Gudiyattam where MrKamaraj, as Chief Minister of Ma-dras, was the candidate opposed by aCommunist. The DMK was theprinc~pal campaigner for Mr Ka-mara].

In the two contiguous States ofMadras and Kerala, the new. Minis-tries to come in are determined tofight the Centre (both Mr N amboo-

FROM A POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

Delhi Leuer•

And Now The Dead-Centre

MARCH 3, 1967

THE storm signals have beenhoisted in the South and cri-

tical confrontations between theStates and the Centre are ahead. The.syndicate and the junior coteriecalled the Indicate have been smash-ed up and the leadership tussle a.the Centre has acquired new kinksand contours. With Mr Kamaraj'sdefeat (his statue on Mount Roadin Madras has all but been removedto the museum) died the biggestpolitical myth rationalised into acharisma and fobbed off on the peo-ple by those who traffic in publiccredulity. Moscow, which read inthe overrated strongman's politicalhoroscope a manifest destiny for himdifferent from that of Mrs Gandhior of the Congress, would not liketo admit its folly now but mnst haverealised how wrong the dope it gotfrom New Delhi could turn out tobe. As expected by many, the righthas effected a massive breakthroughwhile the rejection of the Congresshas been total all over the country.All this is in one dizzy week andwhat have you ...

New Delhi is now sitting up to anew reality which it disliked ponder-ing over in the past. Even as earlyas mid-January Central Intelligencereports reaching New Delhi predict-ed Congress defeat in the South inaddition to a rightist landslide inthe Hindi States. But long used tofeeding on rosy reports, the Centralleaders did not take the warningabout Madras seriously. The "LeftEstablishment" in New Delhi ridi-culed those who spoke of a possibleDMK victory in Madras. Let it berecorded that Mr Kamara j developedsome vague fears about the future ofthe Congress in Madras soon afterthe Ernakulam session of the AICCbut hoped that he could pull it offwith some difficulty. A rash of ins-pired articles in the Left Establish-ment journals confidently predictedthe doom of the DMK. It wouldhave been less unpardonable if thishad been done with any conviction.The same set of persons and journalswhich wanted the Leftists to win

RAMESH U~DHYAYA

The Debacle In Bihar

tatlon between the State and the-Centre would be on food. Keralaearns 30 per cent of India's foreignexchange but the Centre would notassure the State enough food to meetits 50 per cent deficit. Would theCentre force the Congress States tofall in line with the plan for a Na-tional Food Budget which would en·sure equitable sharing of the fooddeficit? It has failed in the pastand would fail in the future. IfKerala forces the issue and if the in·telligent J{erala electorate is takeninto confidence by the State Govern-

- ment about the Centre's attitudethe situation that would developwould be the reverse of the libera-tion struggle. It would be a massupsurge directed against the Centre.The DMK can work up a similar up·surge on food prices and the Salemshipyard, while on Hindi the flash·point would be ._uch nearer.

Vindictive ?Political observers in New Delhi

admit, however reluctantly, that theHindi North, however anti-Congress,would be vindictive towards Madras,Kerala and possibly West Bengal.

A continuing crisis in Centre-Staterelationship is in the offing. In theStates lost by the Congress, wher~coalition governments are not POSSI-

ble, President's Rule would be in-evitable. The President of the fu-ture would be an active participantin the Government.· The Congresshad sought to solve national issues atthe party level. With this situationending, the President would be theperson to watch.

In the context of the mauling theCongress has got all over the coun-try, it cannot make a party issue ofthe Presidential election this time.The Congress strength in the legis-latures and the Centre has been re-duced to a point where the automaticelection of a Congress nominee asPre}ident despite a Congress majorityin Parliament would be impossible.The Presidential candidate wouldhave to be decided in consultationwith the Opposition.

The Centre is virtually dead forthe moment. At the time of MrsIndira Gandhi's election, a ChiefMinister, angered by the insinuationthat the Chief Ministers did not havea vote in the contest, said "What isthe Centre if not a combination ofthe States?" The Congress satrapsfrom the States could push the Cen-

8

NOW

tre around in the past and stage-manage successions. The State Con-gress bosses are still relevant to thefunctioning of the Congress at theCentre. The Chief Ministers hadbecome a powerful factor during thelast days of Mr Shastri and have con-tinued to be so since. But a fewnon-Congress Chief Ministers, someof them of Mr Namboodiripad's sta-tute, would lead to an imponderablesituation for the Congress. If oneof the Chief Ministers demands thatthe DIR should be scrapped or thatit should not apply to his State, howwould the Centre take it?

The immediate preoccupationamong the Conrgess leadership is thechoice of a new Prime Minister.But the larger issues of Centre-Staterelationship are building up. As forthe direction of national politicsthere is little doubt that it would betowards the right because the trun-cated Congress in Parliament wouldlook to the Swatantra and the Jan

PATNAA LL cocky forecasts about theCongress winning an absolute

majority in Bihar have proved un·true. The party has licked the dU'stin the State and all opposition partieshave gained at its cost.

Tht ignominious defeat of the Con-gress in Bihar is particularly signifi-cant. In Kerala which has the high-.est percentage of literacy in the coun-try the Congress debacle was a fore-gone conclusion; in Madras the Con-gress lost despite the Congress Presi-dent's claims of a good administra-tive record, but here in Bihar theCongress downfall is a classic instanceof what an illiterate and phenomenal-ly backward people can do when theirpatience is stretched to breakingpoint. The results have flabbergast-ed political pundits, dazed and dis-mayed Congressmen who had failedto see the writing on the wall.

Election eve saw unprecedentedturmoil in the State-it was a tenseperiod punctuated by mob violenceand police firings and even the elec-tions were marred at a number ofplaces by violent clashes among rivalgroups. So intense was the ant·i-Congress mood of the people in the

Sangh. Things have reached thepoint of a national coalition whichboth Washington and the Swatantraparty have been aiming at. The CIAis reported to have intervened in 50select constituencies and the fundswere passed on to certain candidatesthrough a big business house to wardoff any suspicion. The Washingtonlobby succeeded in getting severalcandidates defeated but also failed toensure victory of its own candidates.

As for Mr Krishna Menon's fate,it is of little consequence or signific-ance now whether he wins or loses.J>ecause the people have given theirverdict against the Congress all overthe country. But if the ongressmoves right at the Centre and someStates like Kerala and Madras wantto move to the left, they would becolliding head on. Developmentsleading to this are to be watched inthe next three months.

February 26, 1967

initial phase of electioneering in theState that even the Congress top bass,including the Congress President, MrKamaraj, and Mr Morarji Desai, werenot allowed to address election meet-ings by hostile crowds at a numberof places. The very sight of a khadi-clad per~on drove the people wildand rampaging crowds attacked tra-ditional Congress institutions likekhadi bhawans and party offices, set-ting on fire a number of them. Butthe myopic Congress leaders continu-ed to make smug forecasts about theirvictory, treating all the while thevolcanic public outbursts against theirparty as a mome.ntary phenomenonwhich would wear off at the polls.

What ,are the factors responsiblefor the Congress rout in the State?Before we proceed to analyse themit needs to be stressed that the dis-enchantment with the Congress,though in varying degrees, is a coun-trywide phenomenon. It should alsobe noted that just on election eve theBihar Pradesh Congress, in a bid towin over the electorate, sprang anelection manifesto promising aboli-tion of land revenue, quick executionof minor irrigation schemes, a fair

MARCH 3, 1967

-wascougerweremsloseeinglionfam]huntionmgof t'shipit iit nductcloseandpIe aalloMinilic Q

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NOW

9

As a leading Congressman put it,attempts to defeat an importantpartyman by rival factions in theparty led to the defeat of 20 Con-gressmen.

Lok Sabba ResultsThe election results show that

casualties among the Congress rankand file have been heavier thanamong the ministerial ranks, whichconcentrated all their resources ontheir respective constituencies andleft the former to fend for them-selves. The Lok Sabha results, however, reveal an entirely different trend.The Congress has scored convincing-ly over the other parties. At the timeof writing, it has won 33 out of 52seats declared as against 39 in thelast elections (only one result remainsto be announced), the SSP 7, theCPI (Right) 5, Jana Kranti Dal 3,Independents 2, .lana Sangh and PSPone each. An interesting feature ofthe Lok Sabha elections is that whilethe Congress candidates have beendefeated in the Assembly constitu-encies the Congress candidates for theLok Sabha have won. The UnionMinister of State for Railways waselected from Buxar parliamentaryconstituency while all the six Con·gress candidates in the Assembly con-stituencies thereof were defeated. Oneconceivable explanation of this couldbe that public feeling against the sit-ting Lok Sabha members of the Con-gress was perhaps not so strong be-cause the electorate did not have theopportunity bf watching their per-formance from a c'ose range .

The party that made the most ofthe people's upsurge against the Con-gress is, of course, the SSP which hasincreased its strength from 10 to 67,It has emerged as the second largestparty after the Congress in theAssembly. The SSP has been in thelimelight ever since it began spear-heading public agitations agailistprice rise, corruption and adminis-trative bungling. It had also theadvantage of a sound organisationwith branches spread over both theurban and rural areas. The CPI(Right) has doubled its strength from12 to 24. It would have fared betterbut for the war of attrition betweenit and the CPI (M). A notable vic-tim of this feud was tQ.e leader of

,the CPI group in the Bihar Assem-bly, Mr Sunil Mukherjee, who lostin Jainshedpur to a Congress womanbecause the Communist votes were

manner in which relief was siphonedoff to Congress henchmen like thegram panchayat mukhias in the hopethat they would get votes for theruling party alienated the rural elec-torate once for all. The Congress tothem, as also the urban masses, hadbecome synonymous with corruptionand jobbery. In the urban areasother factors fanned the discontentwith the Congress to an explosivepoint. The agitation by non-gazet-ted employees and teachers ,for high-er wages and the widespreaa studentunrest were the major ones. And onthe top of these came the successive'police firings at a numbet of places,including Patna. To make thingsworse the administrative rot in theState was mounting every day, withcorruption and casteism at its peakin the Government. The Centre andthe Congress High Command, how-ever, failed to take note of the grow-ing resentment of the people. I1 dis-posed of the charges against the StateMinistry summarily at a politicallevel. It is true that when doubtswere expressed about the State Gov-ernment's ability to shoulder theburdens of relief there was a moveto usher in President's Rule in theState. But it is equally true that themove was given up 'following politi-cal pressures.

Despite the strong popular up~surge against it the Congress has em-erged as the largest single party, al-though some of its leading lights, in-cluding the Chief Minister, Mr K. B.Sahay, the Pradesh Coni&ess Presi-dent, Mr R. Mishra, the CommunityDevelopment ,Minister, Mr S. K.Bage, and three Ministers of Statehave been defeated. It is not sur·prising that the Chief Minister shouldhave heen vanquished because he, asthe leader of the par.ty, was the maintarget of the Opposition onslaught.fIe was also sabotaged by his partyrivals, His principal ally and sup-porter, the Public Works Minister,Mr R. L. Singh Yadav, however,scraped through despite sabotage byhis party rivals. So did the Minis-ter of State for Finance, Mr AmbikaSharan Singh, :whose opponent wasactively supported by his party rivals.It was a cake-walk for the formerChief Minister, Mr B, N, lha, andthe Irrigation Minister, Mr M. p,Singh, who won by a shattering mar-gin of over 31,000 votes. The bittercaste rivalries and in-fighting in theparty has cost the Congress dearly.

MARCH 3, 1967

deal to non-gazetted employees, stu-dents and teachers. But the electo-rate evidently was not taken in bythese sops nor was it convinced byCongress arguments that if the partywas overthrown, democracy and thecountry's stability would' be endan-gered. The roots of discontent herewere too deep to be sHaken by theseempty promises, these grandiloquentslogans. It was there for everyone tosee that while the people were groan-ing under the price spiral and mil-lions in tlle countryside, hit by nearfamine conditions, were battling withhunger and privation, the rival fac-tions in the State Con?;ress were fi?;ht-ing like kitten over the distributionof tickets with an eye on the leader-ship of the party. They had done!t in th~ past a~~ they were doingIt now, httle realIsmg that their con-duct and performance were beingclosely watched this time by an alertand conscious electorate. The peo-ple also n~ted that the Congress partyallotted tIckets even to discredited~inist~r~ in utter disregard to pub-hc opmlOn.

EuphoriaTwenty years of uninterrupted rule

and absence of an effective opposItionhad generated a characteristic eupho-ria among Congressmen who felt con-vinced that all 'was wen with the elec-torate so far as they were concerned.And they particularly banked on therural electorate and the party's orga-nisational efficacy at the grass rootsto see them through. But they had

. grossly miscalculated not only herebut in the urban areas also where theycounted on the support of contrac-tors and industrialists.

,!"he. resentment wit.~ the party wasubIqUItous. In the vIllages, in thewake ')f the calamitous drought, thehollowness of the Government'sgrow-more-food plans and its minorirrigation schemes had dawned onfarmers and farm labourers. Duringthe last three plans over Rs. 40 croreshad been spent on minor irri?;ationschemes with little resultant b~nefitsto the parched countryside. Onewondered where all this money hadgone. Over the years the farmers'distr~st and dislike of the Congressand ItS Government was growing andnow in the wake of misery that thedrought unleashed, the simmeringang-er exploded into a massive revolt.The Congress had clearly lost itsmoorings in the rural areas. The

CHARAN GUPTA

~ divided. The performance of theCPI (M.) was creditable because itwon four seats for the first time inthe State. The Jana Sangh has in-creased its strength manyfold-from5 .to 26 although it has divided bothCongress and Opposition votes. TheJana Kranti DaJ, which was born toolate to be recognised by the ElectionCommission, has won 23 seats (itsChairman, Mr Mahamaya PrasadSinha, claims that at least 15 out of24 Independents belong to his party).This was good showing in view ofthe fact that the party was formedjust before the elections. The PSP,which has been anaemic ever since itbroke away from the SSP has morethan doubled its strength althoughits Chairman, Mr S. N. Singh, andthe leader of the PSP group in theAssembly, have been defeated. Evenhe Swatantra party which has no

moorings in the State has gained fourseats. .

ProgrammeWith the Congress routed in the

State an opposition coalition gov·ernment in the State is almost a certainty despite the recalcitrant atti-tude of the Jana Sangh. The RightCommunists, one of the constituentsof the United Opposition Front, werethe first to speak their mind on theformation of a non-Congress Govern-ment in the State. Mr Sunil Mukher-jee and Mr Jagannath Sarkar (MLC),while promising the support of theirparty to Opposition efforts to forma Government, have said that such agovernment should evolve a commonprogramme to abolish land revenue,extend irrigational facilities on a warfooting and order judicial probes intoall recent police firings. The newgovernment, they said, should alsoinquire into corruption chargesagainst Ministers and confiscate theirill-gotten wealth as a first step to-wards eradicating corruption frompublic life.

The Congress leaders are mean-while watching from the sidelinesopposition moves to form a govern-ment and are only too eager to throwa spanner into these efforts if theycan. There are some amOI'lg themwho brazenly proclaim that in a fewmonths they would again get theiropportunity because "the OppositionGovernment, new as it is to the taskof administration, is bound to makea mess of the whole thing". "Afterall, the worst phase of the drought

10

in the State is coming only now; letus see how the new G;)vernmenthandles it", they say with a mischiev-ous chuckle. Among the Oppositionparti.es too there may be some who..

Calcutta

T HEY almost had not made it. Ifthe United Left Front and the

People's United Left Front had notbeen at each other's throats, tJleirvictory over the Congress would havebeen altogether more decisive, andthe contortions about how to forma . stable government would 'havebeen avoided. The Congress wouldhave go_t 44 less seats if the twoFronts were not involved in intra-mural quarrels. There is no ques-tion that the lack of an overall alli-ance between the opposition partieshas hurt the ULF more (as the post-election analysis on another pageshows). Similarly 7 more Lok Sabhaseats could have been won by the op-position, namely, Howrah, Uluberia,MaIda and Serampore (which theULF lost on account of PULF inter-vention), and Ghatal, Raigunge andBongaon (24-Parganas). Adding upwin because of the presence of ULFcandidates). Which is all (a greatpity.

I have culled the rresults of theindividual constituencies from news-papers, and have somehow missedthe voting figures for Howrah Cen-tral, Bharatpur (Murshidabad) andBongaon (24-Parganas). Adding upthe figures for the other 277 consti-tuencies, I find that my clairvoyance,as stated in the columns on the eveof the election, is none the worse forthe wear. The tot",_ vote cast for theAssembly constituencies has beenclose to I crore 24 lakhs. Out ofthis, the Congress has secured a littlemore than 51 lakhs, the ULF a littleless than 33 lakhs, and the PULFroughly 25 1akhs. The Left Com-munists on their own have got al-most 24 lakhs, the BangIa Congressslightly more than 12 lakhs, and theRight Communists less than 7 lakhs.I have been correct almost to a dotin my forecast on the PULF's perfor-mance. I had suggested that it wouldobtain 20 per cent of the total votescast; it has in fact got 20.3 per cent~

would like to walk over to the Con-gress but they dare not do it for fearof public disgrace.

February 26

Diary

Among its two major constituents,the BangIa Congress has fared slight-ly better than I expected~securing9.8 per cent of the total as againstmy prognostication of 9 per cent, butthis is balanced by the performanceof the Right Communists, who couldsecure only 5.6 per cent of the aggre-gate vote as against my forecast of6 per cent.

• •It may come as a surprise to many

people, but where I went wrong wasin my assessment of the Congressparty's strength. In terms of votespolled, the Congress has done muchbetter than I expected. As againstmy forecast of 35 per cent, the party,for both the Assembly and the LokSabha seats, has succeeded in secur-ing 41.5 per cent of the total vote.The ULF has fared correspondinglyworse as against my -expectation of31 per cent, it could obtain barely27 per cent. Granted that it was anuneven election: there was no dearthof ·r sources for the Congress, andthe machinery of the State was un-flinchingly made use of to improvethe electoral prospects of Mr P. C.Sen, Mr Atulya Ghosh, Miss AbhaMaity and the rest of the Congressclaque. Still, it is a sobering thoughtthat, even today, two out of five per-sons in this State vote for the Con-gress. Only one out of five has vot-ed for the Left Communists; oneout of ten for BangIa Congress, oneout of twenty for the Righ Commu-nists.

• •The results of the elections in the

State have highlighted a number ofincongruities. The Left Communistspolled almost double the number ofvotes cast for BangIa Congress, yet,compared to the latter, it secured only9 more seats. Certainly a number ofthings went wrong with the electionstrategy of the Left Communistparty. There was a disproportion-ate allocation of its resources as be-

MARCH 3. 1967

11

By POLLSTERS

A Brief Analysis

T HE statistics of the general elec-tions of 1967 should be inter-

esting by themselves. Weare pre-senting below an incomplete analysisof the West ~engal elections basedon the results published in thenewspapers. At· the time when thesedata were tabulated the results inonly 10 out of 280 constituencieswere not obtainable. Calculationson the basis of fuller reports-andpresumably more accurate ones-areunder way. However, the margin oferror cannot be SO large as to vitiatethe conclusions based on the datawe have used.

There are wide differences inrates of voter participation . inthe different districts of WestBengal. In this State in the 1952General Elections about 60.7910 of theelectorate exercised their franchise.In 1957 the proportion increased to68~%. In the next General Elections10 million out of 18 million cast theirvote, 1.e. about 55.3910 of the electo-rate. In the latest Election inWest Bengal the proportion ofvalid votes to the total electoralstrength was 62.2910' The proportionwas higher in the districts of Nadia,Midnapore, MaIda, Howrah, Hoogh-ly, Coochbehar and Calcutta-in allcases over 60%. 'The proportion wasbetween 55 and 60% in the districtsof West Dinajpur, Jalpaiguri andMurshidabad an~ in the other dis-tricts it varried between 48% and54910.

/ There is a positive correlation be-tween the literacy rate and the extentof voter participation. In the districtswhere more than 30910 of the peopleare literate (Calcutta, Howrah,Hooghly and 24-Parganas) about64.7910 cast their votes. In the dis-tricts with a literacy rate! ibetween20% and 30910 (Bankura, Birbhum,B.urdwan, Coochbehar, J alpaiguri,Midnapur and Nadia) on the aver-age voter participation has beenlower, about 59.3910' And in districtswith a lower literacy rate only about56.7910 have exercised their franchise.~hese fig~re~ about. voter participa-tIOn are sIgmficant 111that they pro-vide an index of political conscious-ness.

The most remarkable feature of the

Subscribers' should inform usat least two weeks in advance ofany change of address. Theaddress label from the latest issueshould be sent with the newaddress.

MARCH 3, 1967

tween the so-called "prestige" seats erness. I think the Opposition par-like Dhakuria and the Calcutta ties are commlttmg a major mIstaKeNorth-East Lok Sabha constituency m trymg to fOIm a ~uYernment m th~e-where it tried hard to turn back "State m the present sItuatiOn. t:upho-the Right Communists-and several na, to whIch almost everyboay seemspotentially winnable seats. elsewhere. to have fallen a victim, is a badMany of these seats-such as Kalighat, substitut{1 for long-range planning.Shyampukur or Taltola .in Calcutta One can smell a rat: the alacrity-were lost not on account of the with which the Congress agreed toPULF, but because that last clinch- - step aside should itself make theing thrust was missing. It could also whole business suspect. Even if thebe that, in several middle-class areas ULF and the PULF set together,the China issue did hurt the Lef~ their majority in the Assembly will

• Communists, even if marginally. A be nowhere near comfortable. ~Thepourgeois housewife or office-goer, next six months will be most diffi-otherwise aghast with the Congress, cult from the point of view of foodhas perhaps at the ·last moment balk- supply, particularly since Mr P. C.ed .at voting for an allegedly pro- Sen, in a last desperate bid to sal-Chmese party. To the extent this vage an already-lost election, deci,dedhas happened, the deliberate playing in December to give a carte blancheup for days on end of scare stories to the rich producers and growersJon China'~ cultural revolution by If the Centre does not offer adequatethe EstablIshment newspapers, with cooperation, there is bound to besome able assist from the sidelines acute distress in the coming leanby the. Rig:h~ Communist journals, months. Mr Atulya Ghosh's strat<:gyhas paId. dIVIdends. Ano!her point seems to be to' saddle the L.ommumstsof some mterest to note IS that, in and Ban la Con ress with the respoB.-the aggregate, the Left Communist Sl iiit of ee m t e eo e urincandidates for the Lok Sabha seats this peno "'" to make political capitalhave polled almost three-and-a-half of each minor difficulty, to raise helllakh votes less than what the party within the legislature, and generallyhas secured ~or the Assembly seats. Ito try to prove to all and sundry. Th~ electlOns show t~at the one- what an incompetent lot the Leftists

tl~e :nfl.uence of the Righ Commu- and BangIa Congress are. It is pos·msts 111the Howrah-Hooghly, Bar- sible that, if things really rot, somerackp.ore, and Burdwan-Asansol in- of the unattached Independents mightdustnal belts has evaporated. In start wavering, which might force theterms of votes polled, the relative new government to resign. The Con-s!rength of the Left and Right par- gress could then demand a fresh elec-tI~S works out at 3.5: 1. Another tion. .p.Iece .of statistics. that I might. men- A vastly superior strategy for thetlOn IS that, takmg the. two parti.es Opposition parties would be to. ask

. together, the. Commumst. vote 111 immediately for another election.West Bengal IS exactly what it was Now that an asssessment is availablein the 1962 elections, pre.cisely 25.1 of the comparative strength of theper cent of the total. ThIS may not respective parties, it should not ber~pre.sent much progress. But con- difficult to form one broad electoralsidenng ~he trouble and turmoil the alliance. Many of the sceptics and~ommumsts have gone through dur- fence-sitters, who could riot honestly111gthe last five years, their ability believe that the Congress could be de-to r~ach back to the 1962 figure can feated, would also join in, since theyby Itself be regarded as sufficiently now know that this can be done.remarkable. Such an alliance, I have no doubt,

•• would trounce the Congress about asMine may be a voice in the wild- effectively and. thoroughly as has

been done in Kerala and Madras.Backed by a substantial l!lajority inthe Assembly, the government form-ed by the alliance could then lookforward to solid constructive workfor a spell of five years, and it wouldbe beyond the capability of Mr AtulyaGhose to take advantage of any tem-porary difficulties. But perhaps this

Business Manager week I constitute a minority of one.

party-wise voting pattern is the bigslump experienced by the Congress.While it improved its position from38.2% in the first General Electionsto 47.4% in the third, this time itdeclined to 41.3ro of the total ¥alidvotes cast. Under the system of single-member constituencies that we have,this 6.1 ro fall in votes has beenenough to rob the Congress of anoverall majority in the new Assembly.A good part of the votes was takenaway by the BangIa Congress whichbagged some 9.5% of the votes. Ob-viously, the BangIa Congress voterswere not merely disaffected Congressvoters. Ola the other hand the Com-munists just about maintained theirrelative strength; while the unitedparty won 25.4% of the votes in1962, the CPI-M got nearly 18.lrowith CPI obtaining some 6.5%. Ifwe add up the percentage votes ob-tained by their com ituent units theULF got 25.4% and PULF 2...0.7%.'1nus the two Fronts together com-manded 46.1 % of the votes which isof about the same magnitude as theCongress votes in 1962. Bu t theyhave not got in 1967 as many seatsas the latter had in 1962.

The Cost of DisunityHad the same spirit of unity and

accommodation among the variousLeft parties prevailed on the eve ofthe elections as can be seen now orwas witnessed earlier during theFood Movement of spring 1966, theCongress would have suffered a spec-tacular debacle. If we go by the-·current figures, Congress would stillbe more powerful than. in Kerala,but its seats would have been reduc-ed by about 50.

We have made some estimates as-suming tpat a joint Left candidatewould have obtained the same num-ber of votes as rival Left Frontcandidates got separately. Thus therewere some 15 PULF nominees whowould ,have won from the Congresshad there been no ULF candidates inthe same constituencies. Similarllthere were 21 nominees of the ULw a might have been e ect.e ut ora rival from one of the parties con-

For NOW readers in Western Indiamay contact

S. D. CHANDA VARKARla, Kanara House

Mogal Lane, MahimBombay-16.

12

stituting the P,!,LkF; besides, therewas another group of 16 "un-identified" Independents who wereinstrumental in the victory of theCongress candidates. \The par~that suffered most was the CPI-with some 27 seats; It also inflictedmost of the damage on the PULF,having caused as many as 9 out ofthe total of Ii avoidable 10SSe~ TheBangIa Congress lost 4 seats thIS wa ,

ut ma e e • ose e cor-res pan mg gures for tohe other par-ties are CPI 7 and 6, FB 4 and 2. Be-tween the two CPs, the CPI-M suf-fer in 6 and the CPI in 4 constitu-encies only; just by themselves theymanaged to give away at least 10seats to the Congress.

These figures, however, do not tellthe whole story. Although both theFronts publicly called' on the electo-rate to vote for the other Front's can-didates in preference to a Congressnominee, there was a great deal ofanimosity at the base. A whole lotof energy was spent on constituen-cies where rival Left candidqtes werei~ the field, specially in a few "pres-tige" seats where rival Communistswere locked in grim struggle for sur-vival or suprero:lcy. With a little bitof friendly cooperation, at least in

-some of the seats a ULF or PULFcandidate would not have lost by anarrow margin to a COAgressman ina straight fight. In the category ofsuch marginal seats may also beadded those where the Congress votesnarrowly exceeded the combinedvotes of ULF and PULF candidates.

Assuming that a difference of 2,500votes is a rather slender one, theCongress won some 24 seats narrow·ly. The likely beneficiary of a slightchange of wind would have secured10 more seats for the CPI-M, 3 morefor the CPI, 2 for the BangIa Con-gress, 1 for the Forward Bloc, 5 forother ULF candidates, and 2 for theIndependents.

Combining the two sets of esti-mates, the minimum cost of disunityamong the Left works out at some12 seats for the Congress while themaximum could be as high as 76.The cost to the CPI-M seems thehighest-it should be between 27and 37; similar estimates for othersare: CPI 7 and 10, BangIa Congress4 and 5, Forward Bloc 4 and 5, otherULF constituents 9 and 14. It isclear, then, that the split has beenfar more damaging to the ULF thanto the PULF.

Letter From A.merica

The CIA And TheIntelligentsia- I

Rom CHAKRAVaRTI

THE revelation that the NationalStudent Association has been

su bsidized by the CIA for fifteenyears out of twenty years of its exis-tence has outraged student leadersand liberals. Student leaders acrossthe country are indignant, and judg-ing from a cursory glance at somestudent publications, there is wide-spread angry talk on how lowerechelon oflicials have been duped bya handful of officials of this organiza-tion who alone knew the deal withthe CIA.

The criticisms by persons knownto be liberals leave much to be desir-ed. Even when the CIA deal withthe NSA was criticized, there was atendency to explain it by the 'argu-ment that to counter the Communistpenetration into student movementsabroad, the student leaders neededfinancial support and that this wasavailable only from Government

.sources. Their criticisms were main-lyon tactical grounds. Some Govern-ment agency other than the CIAshould have helped them and then,there would have been little groundfor c~iticism. This, in sum, is theth~I?~ of the main trend of publicCrItICIsm of the reported CIA tie-upwith the largest student organizationin the United States.

This type of criticism misses manyvital points. Even the left-wingweekly New Republic which wrotea strong editorial entitled "CIAStooges" and raised the question,"Why a secret subsidy?" failed toraise other, more vital questions. Oneof them is the quid pro quo natureof the deal. This was made clearwhen the general counsel of the CIA,Lawrence Houston, issued a half-assuring, half-threatening statementairped at the student leaders whowere privy to the deal. He said thatthe student leaders broke the secu-rity oath by revealing the NSA's linkwith the CIA and that, for this breachthey would ~ot be prosecuted. Atthe same time, he warned that thedecision not to prosecute "does not

~fftRCH 3, 1967

give these people carte blanche todiscuss anything further they mayknow that is of a confidential nature.There is some information we thinkthey should Plainly not discuss."(Italics mine.)

Sam Brown, chairman of the NSAsupervisory board, told a news con-ference that "sensitive information"was received by the CIA from studentdelegates sent abroad on the CIAexpenses, but that this if!formationdealt with personalities and politicsin student organizations abroad, ra-ther than "hard intelligence". Thismay be accepted at face value here,but will be treated with scepticismabroad. In any case, it is obviousfrom the warning given by the coun-sel for the CIA tha t some of the in-formation supplied by the Americanstudent leaders JIlay have been atleast of a border-line nature. It alldepends on how you treSlt the typesof information that the CIA reCl!iv-ed and how they were gathered inforeign countries.

Another question arising out ofthe CIA deal with the NSA is thesecret, proliferating nature of theCIA's operations. The NSA, accord-ing to Sam Brown, received CIA sub-sidy through some twenty foundationsand individuals acting as cover forchannelling funds from the CIA. Fol-lowing up on ·he story, the New YorkTimes came up with a list of orga-nizations which received CIA subsidydirectly or indirectly, and one is leftwith the uncomfortable feeling !hatthis is hardly the full story and thatit will perhaps never be known.

Among the listed beneficiaries fromthe CIA, there are at. least three orga-nizations that conduct operations inIndia. Two of them are student or-ganizations: The National StudentPress Council of India and Interna-tional Youth Center, New Delhi. Thethird organization, The Institute ofPublic Administration of New Yorkwhich, in collaboration with Indianscholars, has published several mono-graphs on aspects of the greater Cal-cutta Metropolitan Area. .A coupleof monographs published by this or-ganization that came to my notice,are well-documented pieces in areassuch as municipal finance, for ins-tance, on which very little work hasbeen done under purely Indian aus-pices. .

The point at issue is not, however,the quality of the products that theseorganizations may have been put.ting

MARCH 3, 1967

NOW

out, but t.he extra-curricular activitiesthat the personnel associated withthese organizations may have indulg-ed in. Much of the so-called "intel-ligence", it can be argued, are ofsuch a nature that it can be gatheredopenly by scholars, particularly inopen countries like India; and thosewho would like to blunt the criti-cisms -against the CIA's associationwith scholastic pursuits may perhapscite this as part of their argument.

Scholar-TechnocratsThere is a deeper aspect of the

problem which deserves notice.As a consequence of the Cold War, inmany countries a new stratum of whatmay be called scholar-technocrats hasbeen born, who are open to extra-curricular blandishments much thesame way the scholar-priests of theancient past were. These blandish-ments may not necessarily be crudeand the selling of one's talents orsoul need not be made at one bid-ding. The process is subtler, andhere, to make my complex point, letme quote a telling excerpt from a re-cent article by the famous Americanlinguist Noam Chomsky, entitledThe Responsibility of Intellectuals.

Chomsky complains that a newbreed of "scholar-experts" indulgingin "value-free" technologies have ar-rived. "A good case can be made",he writes, "for the conclusion thatthere is indeed something of a con-sensus among intellectuals who havealready achieved power and affluence,or who sense that they can achieve'them by "accepting society" as it isanQ promoting t.he values that are"being honored" in society. It is alsotrue that this consensus is most no-ticeable among scholar·experts whoare replacing the free-floating intellec-tuals of the past.. In the university,these. scholar-experts construct a"value-free technology" for the solu-tion of technical problems that arisein contemporary society, taking a"responsible stance" .. This consensusamong the responsible scholar-expertsis the domestic analogue to that pro-posed internationally, by those whojustify the application of Americanpower in Asia, whatever the humancost, on the grounds that it is neces-sary to contain the "expansion ofChina" (an "expansion" which is, tobe sure, hypothetical for the timebeing".

It is not, of course, true that allAmerican intellectuals belong to

Chomsky's category of scholar-experts,for he himself, by the very fact 'ofcriticising them, proves that there aresignificant exceptions. But the trendthat he mentions is noticeable andits political significance lies in thepossibility that this type of intellec-tuals can be "coopted", to use a nice,little word used by sociologists inplace of the cruder, commonsenseword "bought".

This analysis sheds light on theway the intellectuals and students,not only here but also abroad, can beand are brought under the wings oforganizations that. should have noofficial connection with them. Mostof the intellectuals and students (youmay add journalists, too) who mayallow themselves to be handmaidensof Governme~t agencies, whether itbe the State Department, DefenceDepartment or the CIA, are not ne-cessarily scheming, mischievous typesindulging in dirt.y politics. They areintelligent, often brilliant men.Eugene Groves, the president of theNSA, for instance, was a Rhodesscholar. What is so significant abouttheir misdemeanour is that they didwhat they thought was unexceptional,and even now, when a furore hasbroken over the heads, they seem tobe more concerned about the scandalthan the morality and ethics of theirsecret deal with the CIA.

The issue for countries outside theUnited States involves much morethan the state of mind of this type ofAmerican intellectuals; it involves,more importantly, the predominantAmerican out.look on world affairs ingeneral and "Communism" in parti-cular. The predominant American.view of world politics is based on abitter obsession with anti-Commu-nism and it must also be added, thatthe American view of Communismis loose. To people who run orga-nizations like the CIA and the FBI,even people of moderate liberal viewsmay pass as Communist ogres. Inview of earlier revelations of CIAactivities in the New York Times, itis also obvious that the CIA can betrig~er-nappy and has often proved tobe impertinently so. Combine thesetwo features of the CIA's stance andfigure out for yourself whether theCIA's involvement with American in-t.ellectuals and students abroad canalways be explained away as inno-cuous, as some liberal critics (inclu-ding even James Reston and WalterLippmann) are trying to do.

13

MARCH 3, 1967

tested to university authorities, and asa result several of these usually secretresearch contracts have been cancel-led. This increasing fund of moneyhas, in a way, corrupted the academicworld. When huge sums of moneyare available to study, say counter-insurgency in Thailand or the deve-lopment of' toxic chemicals, manyscholars are tempted to become ser-vants of the government and the mi-litary rather than the abstract notionof "truth". The American academicworld, as a result of this new sourceof money, becomes a kind of arm ofofficial government policy. Thus,academic freedom and traditions ofindependent sholarship are subvertednot by repression as in Communistor Fascist countries, but by the muchmore subtle and perhaps more insi-dious influence of bribery.

It is curious that it has not beenthe right wing which has been theaccomplice of the Central Intelli·gence Agency and other agencies, butrather the liberals. The NSA caseis a good illustration, for the policyof the organization has been so libe-ral that many of the more cOnserva-tive southern universities .have quit itin protest against its policies. Prac-tically all of the officers and staffmembers, particularly those responsi-ble for international programming,have been strongly liberal in theirown views. Nevertheless, they were

~ willing to participate in projectsfunded by the CIA and to indirectlywork for its policy objectives. Foryears, American liberals have beenaccused of being "dupes of the Com-munists". In fact, they have oftenbeen dupes of the anti-Communists.

The implications of the NSA expo-sure, the "Camelot" incident, andinevitable future disclosures will fur-ther decrease the credibility of Ame-rican scholarship overseas. Indeed,it is difficult to see how supposed pro-fessionals in the area of spying andintelligence could be sufficiently stu-pid to risk a student organizationcarefully built up over fifteen years.It is possible that the CIA is in direneed of a James Bond with a pipeand academic title instead of anAston-Martin automobile. But equal-ly important is the implication thatAmerican higher education is becom-ing increasingly involved with thepolicy aims of American foreign po-licy, and that important traditions ofindependent scholarship and acade-mic integrity are being destroyed

used to bring student leaders fromthe developing countries to the Unit-ed States, and to organize seminars.In addition, the NSA maintained anumber of travelling representativeswho regularly visited the developingareas and reported on developmentsin student movement. NSA repre-sentatives occasionally financed fac-tions or student organizations wpichthey felt were important. This dir-ect interference in the affairs of stu-dent mo'V6m.entsin foreign countrieswas unknown to the American stu-dent community, although it was re-sented overseas by student leaders.Thus, it is not entirely clear thatthe National Student Association didnot engage in kind of "intelligence"

"work which may have ~been useful toAmerican Government officials.

ImplicationsBut more important than the actio

vities of the NSA itself are the impli-cations which the exposure has forAmerican academic life. Startingwith the ill-fated ~"Project Camelot"-a multi-million dollar research ope-ration sponsored by the U.S. Army-and extending to include the key roleof Michigan State University in creat-ing dictator Diem's secret police, the"credibility" of American scholarsand other representatives overseas hasbecome very suspect. Noone can besure that an innocent sounding re-search' project sponsored by someAmerican foundatJon is not a "cover"for an intelligence operation. Thevaluable research produced by Ame-rican scholars concerning aspects ofdevelopment may well be endangeredby the use of scholarly enterprises forother purposes. And there is noreason to blame foreign countries fordistrusting Americans under these c~r-cumstances. Thus, the large maJo-rity of American scholars overseas,

. who are committed to purely acade-mic research, will suffer because ofthis interference with university au-tonomy.

Within the United States there arerepercussions of government interfer-ence in the academic. world. Increas-ing amounts of money are given tothe universities by the U.S. Govern-ment for the purpose of research.Many of these grants concern the de-velopment of chemical and biologicalwarfare, or other rather questionableenterprises. Recently, student groupsand concerned professors have dis-covered such actIvities, and have pro-

The- CIA And TheIntelligentsia- II

PHILIP G. ALTBACH,

RECENT exposures of close con-nections between the American

academic community and the CentralIntelligence Agency and other govern-ment agencies concerned with intelli-gence and external subversion ,havecaused a good deal of emb" assmentt.o both educators and governmentofficials. More important, however,is the fact that traditions of indepen-"dent scholarship and research are be-ing destroyed by the involvement ofthe academic community in intelli-gence work. The most recent expo·sure, which has linked the U.S. Na-tional Student Association directlywith the Central Intelligence Agency,is particularly serious. The NSA isthe largest and most prestigious Ame-rican "student organization, represent-ing well over one million Americanstudents. The NSA has "never beenknown as a left-wing organization, al-though its stand on racial integra-tion, academic freedom, and studentrights has been widely respected.NSA's international programmes,while less well known to Americanstudents, have made it the majorspokesmen of the American studentcommunity overseas.

The NSA recently admitted, un-der the pressure of an expose inRamparts magazine, that it has re-ceived an annual grant of $200,000from the CIA through various "inde-pendent foundations". NSA spokes-men stated that this relationship end-ed in 1965, no doubt after other ex- _posures of CIA influence were broughtto light. The justification given bythe NSA, which has been stronglyliberal in its political orientation,was that it felt it was necessary tocounter the influence of Communiststudent movements on the interna-tional scene, and the only source offunds was the CIA. The organiza-tion denied that it engaged in intel-ligence work for the American Gov-ernment.

There is no doubt that these expo-sures have destroyed the internation-al programmes of the .NSA. Never-theless, its international stance raisessome important points. Much of themoney received from the CIA was

15

for helping the revolt and infiltrat-ing it.

There may be an element of truthin this, but Washington has found aconvenient excuse to carry the warto North Vietnam, as well as to keepCommunist China at bay. Not onlyall U.S. air strikes against Commu-nist forces in Laos originate in Thai-land, but 80 per cent of the air raidson North Vietnam are carried outfrom Thai bases. Both Bangkok andWashington do not however like totalk about it publicly.

While talking freely about theU.S. presence in general terms, ac-cordlllg to the Times, Thai leadershave "never informed their peoplethat their country is being used asa U.S. military base for bombing at-tacks" against North Vietnam andthe Ho Chi Minh trail. Even mostpeople in the United States werekept in the dark until recently anddid not know what the U.S. planesin Thailand were up to, either.

rectionists in the north. The Thai-land build-up is aimed at China."

The Senate certainly knows. Notlong ago, William Fulbright, Chair-man of the Senate Foreign RelationsCommittee, said he believed that the"real purpose" of the United Statesin Asia was to stay there indefinitelyto counterbalance Communist China.The development of air and supplybases on a wide scale in Thailandsupports his feeling, he added. "Itis almost incredible to think that weate doing this as a temporary opera-tion."

ContainmentThe real aim of Washington, no

doubt, is the cont.ainment of RedChina, as also to provide alternativebases for American troops, who someday will have to leave Vietnam eitherthrough negotiation or torce.

It is therefore not surprising thatboth Bangkok and Washingtonshould regard South-East Asia as astrategic entity in a military sense."Vietnam, Laos and Thailand," writes Nuclear WeaponsHanson Baldwin, military editor of The Thai ruling generals, it is be-The New York Times and supposed liefed, have not stopped there, butto be a leading defence expert in the gone a giant step further in allowingcountry, "have long been recognized the United States to introduce nu-by military officers as strategically in- clear weapons in their country. Thisdivisible." So, Thailand is also a is a closely guarded secret, but thecountry geared for war., though Thai other day the editor of Al Ahram andleaders are said to be highly reluctant confidant of President Nasser disclos-to admit it. ed that the Americans were making

Though in name ruled by King "nuclear preparations in Thailand"Phumiphon, Thailand is actually to deter Communist China from en-ruled by army generals. It has there- tering the Vietnam war.fore firmly thrown its lot with the From. all accounts, it is thereforeUnited .States in Asia since 1950, becoming increasingly clear that thewhen it sent troops to the U.N. force John~on Administration is closing inin Korea. In 1954, it joined SEATO on the Chinese, perhaps, slowly pre-and at the height of tlie Laotian paring the ground for a military con-crisis in 1961-62 it permitted the sta- frontation with them now, rathertioning of 5,000 American troops on than three to five years hence. It is,its soil. Since 1954, Bangkok has indeed, obviously apparent that it isbeen receiving an average of $40 mil- no~ Hanoi but Peking that W';-h.lion worth of military aid a year ington is trying to get at. .from Washington. This was raisedto $60 millioJ;l. when President John- . At any rate, .the. fact that the Arne-son visited the country during the •..., r~can~ are bnngmg. grave nuclearManila conference. ' nsk~ m South-East Sia can no longer

!~ailand has a population of 30 be Ignored. There may n~t be anymilhon, with 130,000 men unaer love lo~t between the Indians andarms. The present regime is cons i- the Chmese, but we should not for-dered to be oppressive to the peasants get that the destruction of China isand some American aid advisers have not our surest defence against Com-found that Government "presence" at munist threats on our northern bor-village level is lacking. No wo cr ders. It has been amply demonstrat-~he peasants. are, increasingly rising ed in the past two years that thel~evolt agamst th~ ~ove~nment, but greatest threat to mankind may yett~e J<;>hnson Ad!llIlllstratI?n .blames come not from Peking but fromVIentIane, HanOI and Pekmg mstead Washington.

NEW YORK.-Another Vietnamis, perhaps, taking shape in

Thailand, quietly an'd without muchpublicity, while ~he Vietnam war isbeing steadily escalated. The John-son Administration, after persistentdenials, has admitted that Ame-rican helicopters recently flew Thaitroops in an effort to crush the so-called Communist insurgency in thenorth-east provinces of Thailand.

This belated acknowledgment onlyconfirmed the fears of some respon-sible public figures that the UnitedStates was turning Thailand into ahuge military complex. For sometime, it has been known that some ofthe most modern air and naval basesare being built in Thailand, but theAdministration has deliberately kepta tight IiI?'

It is belIeved that the United Stateshas five or six major air bases, with400 planes and many helicopters. Onthe Gulf of Siam, a multi-million-dollar port is now under constructionat Sattahip. There are also some35,000 American troops, as well assome 400 civilians, including 100Peace Corpsmen. The troop build-,up is expected to go up steadily, asin the recent past. .

This build-up is rather negligible,compared with the present build-upin Vietnam. Even so, it presents apicture similar to the beginnings ofU.S. military invfillvement in SouthVietnam in the late fifties, when theDiem regime. sought Washington'shelp in combating the Vietcong acti-vities. In Thailand, too, Washing-ton says AmeFican troops are thereat the req:-~st of the Thai Govern-ment.

But few Americans take this expla-nation seriously. Writing in theWashington Star, Ricard Wilson de-clared: "Eventual joint and com-bined operations of the Thai forcesand the U.S. against the Communistforces of the north are in the plan-ning stage. The Senate should know,if it does not already, that the build-up in Thailand far exceeds the re-quirement of fending off the fewhundred hardcore Communist in5ur-

Thailand : A Military

Springboard

MARCH 3, 1967

SHANKER GHOSH

.•.

between you and me...

./•."

It was an easy delivery. God bless you, my daughter. The ladydoctor is very able and kind.

When I was your age, I remember, my sister died in confinement.The do; could not manage the case. There .was no hospitalwithin 15 miles. We hurried to fetch the lady doctor in thetown, but it was too late. She had a car but it could not reachhere. We were unlucky.

The same year, was It 19441-more misfortunes fol/owed. Twoof my uncles died of malaria. Uma's father was one. Then mycousin Arun's entire family was afflicted with smallpox. Weprayed; they recovered, but badly damaged. Renu, theyoungest lost her eye-sight. .

Thank God, we don't hear of pre-mature deaths so often now.Really, things have changed.

·1 am so happy

Expectation of Life atBirth 32 50

PlanmeansProgress

8129.

1951 1965

8,600 15,000

56,000 103.000Doctors

MedicalColleges

Hospitals & .•Dispensaries

-

,'.;

17·

1We have drawn on the followingsources: People's Daily editorial of July 17,1966, "A New Stage of the Socialist Revo-lution in China" (English translation).R. Guillain-Les Mystere des Gardes Rouges-Le Monde, November 2, 1966. DavidBonavia and a Special Correspondent-Heirs and Successors-Far Eastem Eco/lo-mic Review, June 30, 1966. 01ina 1966-Annual Survey-Far EasteY/! Economic Re-view, ·Sept. 29, 1966, Cina: domande e re-flessioni-Rillascita, Jan. 6, 1967.

Japan. The present culuual rev lu-tion, which is a continuation of theclass struggle in the cultural sphere,also basically {ollows this well-testedmethod. A long editoial o{ the RedFlag in early December, 1966, whilecalling for' extensive democracy" saidthat without such e.'tensive demo-cracy, without hundreds of millionsof people paying attention to Stateaffairs, supervising the organs of theparty and the State, and supervisingthe leading cadres at all levels, it isimpossible to prevent the usurping ofleadership of the party and State bycounter - revolutionary revisionists".Here is the gist of the whole methodof conducting the cultural revolution.

A Continuing ProcessHow has the present movement

developed?l As we have indicat-ed above, the present cultural revo-lution is not something disconnectedwith the past but a more rapid ad-vance in a direction long followed.Leaving aside the beginnings of theideological revolution in the liberat-ed areas before 1949, the present re-volution can be shown to be the dir-ect out.come of a process that wasinitiated shortly after the seizure ofpower. There have been severalstages in the process, all having a masscharacter: the movement againstthree evils (corrupt.ion, bureaucracy,waste) and five evils (bribery, taxevasion, theft of State property, cheat-ing on government contracts, steal-ing economic information for specu-lation) in 1952; the anti-rightistmovement of 1957; the movementagainst rightist opportunism in1959; the socialist education move-ment started in 1963 which is stillcontinuing.

The socialist education movement,started first in the countryside, ga-thered momentum in the summer andearly autumn of 1964 and becameknown as si-ching ("Four clean-up"movement) -"cleaning up in the po-

tic method-the "mass line" -by en-couraging the initiative and the ac-tive artici ation of the masses in t11eea Illg questIOns 0 tate and so-

ciety. One of the persistent "dogmas"of the Maoists is trrat it is only themasses that can liberate themselvesthrough self-education and participa-tion in all aspects of the battle for so-cialism. (The Maoists hold that oftenthe party organisations themselveswith their own set of entrenched in-terests in maintaining the status quoare incapable of carrying through arevolutionary measure) This "blind"faith in the masses educating them-selves through struggles has been withMao from his very early days. Thusin June, 1m, Mao launched the"land verification movement" in theChinese Soviet Republic-a move-ment to verify whether land dis-tribution had been properly carriedout. Mao utilized this seeminglyinnocuous movement to promote po-litical consciousness among the pea-sant masses by making them activelyparticipate in the movement andthereby showing them the true na-ture of their class enemies. He him-'self described a few months laterwhat had happened in a model dis-trict: "For 55 days the masses of thewhole district were set in motion.The feudal remnants were radicallydestroyed. In the course of the veri-fication more; than three hundredfamilies of landlords and rich pea-sants were discovered, twelve counter-revolutionary elements, called 'bigtigers' by the peasants, were shot,and counter-revoI'utionary activitieswere repressed." (Translated and cit-ed in Stuart Schram's Mao Tse-tung(Pe~in, '1966, 'p. 167). .

In January, 1934, summing up thewhole work, Mao added significantly,"To conduct these tasks solely throughthe activities of a few Soviet func-tionaries involves the danger of low-ering the fighting spirit of themasses". Later the same method of"mass line"-"from the masses to themasses"-was applied by Mao in allspheres of activity during the civilwars and the war of resistance against

China And Our Mandarins

MONITOR

Reversion To Barbarism ?-II

THE necessity of a cultural revolu-tion being admitted, the next

question is how to carry it out. Inother words, how can the people ina socialist society reject the ~ourgeoisworld outlook and accept the prole-tarian, Marxist-Leninist world out-look? There are mainly two ways: ad-ministrative-bureaucratic and revolu-

, tionary-democratic. Some people thinkthat once the seizure of power hasbeen effected and property relationshave, in the main, changed, the onlyneed is to spread education and cul-ture among the masses--of course inthe spirit of socialism-and carry for-ward science and technology all alongthe line. All this can be done by thesocialist government mainly throughlaws, regulations and administrativemeasures. In fact this has been thepredominant trend in the socialistcountries hitherto. Undoubtedly thisis important. However, this consti-tutes only one aspect of tlie problem-maIll!'y quantItatIve. It does nottouch the aspect of struggle and con-tradiction in the cultural sphere in asocialist society. In other words, to

./ put the thing a little more schemati-cally, as regards the basic dialecticalphenomenon, "the unity of oppo-sites", the hitherto existing practicehas emphasised, once the seizure ofpower is completed, the aspect ofunion and harmony and practicallyneglected the aspect of opposition andstruggle in the sphere of culture in asocialist society.

Along with this there has been an-other, and often complementary,trend, particularly in the SovietUn'::m and in those socialist coun-tries that blindly imitated the Sovietmodel-creation of "revolutionaryculture" by bureaucratic and. s~etpolice measu.J:es. thereby trying to~ve thp prohlem at one stroke.

I There was a radical departure fromall this in China. There, whilespreading education among themasses and creating favourable con-ditions for the great advances inscience and technology, the rulingparty tried to solve the contradictionsfollowing the revolutionary-democra-tMARCH 3, 1967

NOW

litical, economic, ideological and ot·ganisational fields". The present cul-tural revolution is basically the si·ching applied predominantly in ur·ban areas.

The cultural revolunon can befully appreciated only as a part ofthe socialist revolution that is stillcontinuing in China accompanied bygreat convulsions in her political andsocial life. These convulsions, intheir turn, can be properly under-stood only in the context of the over-riding preoccupation of the Chineseleaders with the danger of creepingrevisionism leading ultimately to ca-pitalist restoration in their country.This preoccupation, almost amount-ing to an obsession, is the direct out-come of what they have witnessed inthe international Communist move·ment in recent years. Particularlyalarming to them has been the stateof affairs in Eastern Europe and theSoviet Union where there has beenan accelerated growth, inside andoutside the ruling parties, of bureau-cracy, careerism, vested interests inmaintaining the status quo and afrantic drive for material comforts al'americaine. This degeneration isthe cause as well as the effect of whatconstitutes in the eyes of the Chineseleaders the essence of revisionism asmanifested in the attitudes of theleadership of those countries to thequestion of war and peace, characterof the national liberation movement,transition from capitalism to socialism, nature of the State in socialistsociety etc. What disturbed themmost was the fact that their ownhouse was not in order. There Wereseveral danger signals. In the firstplace, in spite of the heavy blowthat the Khrushchev leadership haddealt China in the economic andmilitary spheres in order to put pres-sur,e upon her, there were peoplelike Peng Te-hai who wanted to re-establish good relations with the So-viet leadership for political as wellas economic reasons, Then again,during the lean years from 1960 to1962, when the Chinese leaders wereobliged to relax some of the rigidi-ties of the economy and thereby al-lowed a period of comparative laxity,a number of people (includingcadres) seem to have taken advan-tage of the situation and there seemsto have taken place a good deal ofmismanagement, graft and other typesof corruption. Later Chou En-Iai him-self admitted that "from 1959 to

18

1962 the class enemies at home launch·ed severe attacks on socialism andconsequently once again a fierce classstruggle ensued". Thirdly, in theideological field the trend towards re-

,visionism was clearly visible in suchpersons as Yang Hsi-chien, partytheoretician and heaa of the HigherParty School where he was lecturingin 1961 on his theory of "two com-bines into o~e'.'. His theoJ;y, takenfrom the classical Chinese philosophy,amounted to the assertion that in dia-lectical relation between oppositesunity is primary, struggle secondary.

Already in its session of Septem-ber 1962, the CCP Central Commit-tee took serious note of the situationand decided to cleanse the party andsociety of bourgeois and revisionist"influences. This sociallst educationcampaign and the si-ching were moreor less the direct result of this deci-sion.

New Dimensions,Since 1964-1965 the movement has

assumed two new dimensions. Firstis the huge American build-up inVietnam which, in the eyes of theChinese leaders, constitutes a directmilitary threat to China herself. Ajournalist as well-informed as EcigarSnow even considers that ~Americaana China are already at war eventhough there is not yet a direct con-frontation between their armies, justas there was no precise moment whenthe Americans thought they were atwar with Vietnam") ("Le GuerreSino-Americaine" in Nouvel Obser-vateur, July 27-August 2, 1966). Inthis context the cultural revolution,the mobilisation of the Red Guardsand the new role given to the Peo-ple's Liberation Army accompaniedby increasing democratisation in itsranks are steps taken to militarise,unify and keep the whole country in

,readiness. The present cultural re-volution cannot indeed be fully ex-plained save in the context of theU.S. aggression and its increasing es-calation in South-East Asia. Hereagain Mohit Sen scores a brilliantvictory over the Chinese. To provethat the CCP leadership is not earn-est about the Vietnamese liberationwar he refers to the "irrefutable"fact that the tc resolution on thecultural revolution does not containone word on Vietnam. Nothing canbe more conclusive; indeed the re-solution does not mention Vietnam.His victory, of course! is not at all

marred by the "insignificant" factthat about half of the CC communi-que itself is devoted to the interna-tional situation of which one wholeparagraph deals with Vietnam I

Secondly, the class struggle in theideological field and hence the resis-tance to the campaign has turned outto be much more stubborn in thecities-particularly in the centres ofeducation-than in the countryside.This is hardly surprising/in view ofthe fact that it is in the cities thatthe pressure for bourgeois consumergoods is the greatest, foreign influ-ences strongest, the last remnants ofcapitalism most concentrated and theopportunities for the bourgeois acade-micians to propagate their ideas mostextensive. The strength of this re-sistance explains the particularly mili-tant and aggressive form of the mo-vement in the urban areas. In factthe leadership seems to be on thewhole satisfied with the operation ofth~ Revolution among the workersand peasants. Thus the PeoPle'sDaily on September 15, 1966, statedthat "It is not necessary for the RedGuards 'l-nd the teachers and students... to go to factories and rural areasto exchange revolutionary experienceand interfere with the arrangementsthere. The workers and former poorand lower-middle peasants are entire-ly capable of carrying out well therevolutionary movement in their ownunits" .

In the cities the revolution seemsto have started with the despatch ofwork teams to different universitiesand with the attack on the existingeducational system as fostering bour-geois and revisionist ideas and hencebeing a misfit in a society buildingsocialism. Within a short time anumber. of leading university andparty offioials were dismissed in differ-ent universities. Of all the citiesPeking, it seems, was the very citadelof revisionism controlled as it wasby the "black gang" of the PekingMunicipal Committee associated withWu Han and his protector PengCheng. It was only with the dismis-sal of the Peking University PartyCommittee In June 1966, .that thecultural revolution became a massmovement "never before known". Itis also not accidental that the RedGuards (hong wei bing) first emerg-ed in Peking on a mass scale.

Red GuardsWho are these Red Guards shaking

MARCH 3, 1967

..."

19

~-_.-----~--._---- -~ b~.y·,.

the youth as a whole but base itselfprimarily on the sons and daughtersof the workers, soldiers and the form-erly poor peasants. In 1965 a newcampaign was launched within thebroad framework of the socialist edu-cation movement-an intense politi-calisation of children and their teach-ers.

Without waiting for the results ofall this preparatory work, withoutwaiting for the Red Guards, the cul-tural revolution was launched in theautumn of 1965. No name was yetgiven to the movement and no noisypublicity accompanied it. Then sud-denly in April 1966 it was carried tobroad daylight under its own name.The Red Guards passed through asimilar process. It was precisely inApril 1966 that they began to orga-nise without any name being to themand without any publicity. It is to-wards this end that the Ninth Cen-tral Committee of the CYL met inplenary session. (April 1966). It ter-minated its work with the declarationof a "new wave of revolutionisationof the youth" and by anno1.lncing thatall youths should be trained into newYii Kung "to remove the three moun-tains of imperialism, modern revi-

that the League should accept "Marx-ism-Leninism and the Thought ofMao Tse-tung as the guidingthought", should "put ideologicalwork in the first place and persist inthe line of upholding proletarianideology and eliminating bourgeoisideology". What Yang Hai-po, FirstSecretary of the Third Central Com-mittee, said to the young revolution-aries Was particularly significant. Hepointed out that China was still in atransitional period from capitalismto Communism which would takesome "five to ten Or more genera-tions". .Class differences still existed.Simply as a process of peaceful evolu-tion socialism might-as in Tito'sYugoslavia and Khrushchev's Russia-degenerate into revisionism andcapital,ism. Secondly, for lack of dir-ect revolutionary experience and ig-norance of pre-liberation struggles,China's youth may lack "a deep un-derstanding of the complexity andhardship of the revolutionary course"and hence be vulnerable to bourgeoisinfluence: At the Congress the CCof the League was almost completelyreorganised and its cadres at the basewere purged. It was resolved that theLeague should extend its activities to

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China from one end to the otherwith their central slogan, "Smash theold and set up the new" (Yo ChiuIi hsin)? Have they sprung forthAthena-like, without warning, fromMao Tse-tung's head with a mightywar cry and in complete armour?Have they, moreover, ,been formedindependently of the Party organi-sations and against them with noworking-class participation? We holdthat like the cultural revolution it-self the Red Guards are also the out-come of a process, that, secondly, theyare very much under the overall Com-munist leadership and that, thirdly,the overwhelming majority of themare the sons and daughters of theworkers and peasants.

The beginnings can be trac~d tothe summer of 1964. During theNinth Congress of the CommunistYouth League the new generation ofChina came to learn from Mao andthe party that the time had come foryoutp to take over the leadership ofthe revolution from the old and thatthis crucial role would devolve uponthose among the youth who wouldprove their fighting spirit and Maoistpurity iin course of revolutionarystruggle. It was then emphasised

MARCH 3, 1967

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sionism and the reactionaries ofvarious countries", On. May 4, YouthDay was celebrated with great glamourand the League's Journal of the Chin-ese Youth announced "a violent classstruggle". On the same day the en-tire national Press revealed and de-nounced an anti-Party conspiracyhatched by the bourgeoisie ,and therevisionists. On May 17 a new callwent out to the youth: "Fight theopponents of the Thought of MaoTse-tung 1" Three events rockedPeking less than a fortnight later-the fall of Peng Chen, liquidation ofthe Peking Municipal Committee ofthe party, purge of the National Uni-versity of Peking. At the same timethe units of the Red Guards-with-out yet carrying any name-appear-ed at Tsinghua University in Peking,The Red Guards began their opera-tion inside the educational institu-tions ;recusing the bourgeois and re-visionist elements among students andteachers. On Jure 13 the universi-ties and other institutions of learn-ing closed for eight months thus en-abling millions of young men andwomen to participate in the culturalrevolution. Towards this end, onJune II, the CYL journal called up-on "one hundred and thirty millionyoung men and women", One June18 it published a call to the "youthof the Left" and on June 23 a longtext asking the leaders to conquer themasses of youth. "Those who remainin the centrist position", it warned,"will inevitably undergo a violentdisintegration; we can win the majo-rity of them for the Revolution". OnJune 24 the Red Guards of Tsinghuaproclaimed in their posters, "we wantthe smell of powder", During thewhole month of July the young revo-lutionaries carried on their battle be-hind the walls of the educationalinstitutions. When on August 18,after the plenary session of the CCof the CCP, they appeared beforeMao and Lin Piao at the Tien AnMen square they were called "RedGuards",

Who are these Red Guards? Ac-cording to competent observers, allare not students, there are also work-ers. Among the students, again, therecruitment takes place mainly amongthe. sons and daughters of the form-erly poor peasants, workers and sold-iers. Their proletarian origin gua-rantees t.heir unquestioning loyaltyto socialism; at the same time theirextreme youth gives them all the

/

2Q

NOW

energy and intolerance that theirinspirers can desire.

As regards their formation it ap-pears from the CC resolution thatthey are presumably modelled on thedemocratic structure of the ParisCommune. They are organised incompanies, sections and squads. Theyhave their headquarters in the pro-vinces, in the cities, in the universi-ties, in the schools. They have alsotheir own internal police. Theyhave, it seems, become organs of pow-er in the cultural re\Colution, as theCC resolution indicates. By rotationthe loc.al Guards from different pro-vinces go to Peking for training.They spend a part of their day instudying and discussing mainly MaoTse-tung's thought, and the rest inmilitary training.

No Party FetishismWhat is their relation to the Party?

They constitute undoubtedly a sepa-rate organisation. Mao and his com-rades might have thought that theparty organisations are not always thebest media for carrying out this un-precedented revolutionary task, main-ly because their officials, themselves abureaucratic elite, were often interest-ed in maintaining the status quo. Therevolutionarie5, it may be pointedout, have never any party-fetishismeven if it is the Communist Party,Lenin had spoken of purging theParty "mainly with the aid of the ex-perience and suggestions of non-partyworkers" which would mean "an enor- _mOlls achievement for the revolution".(Purging the Party (1921) -SelectedWorks, II, p. 745. Our italics). Toa certain extent the Cuban Revolu-tion went through a similar process.

All this, of course, is a direct threatto the vested interests of the tradi-tion-inhibited, myopic party bureau-crats who have/so long been excell-ing in "observing Leninist norms"in different historical circumstances-in the colonies and semi-colonies(Algeria, Cuba, India), in the metro-politan capitalist countries (France,Italy), in the socialist world (USSR,Hungary). However, about the over-all control of the Red Guards by theParty there can be no ques ion. It isthe Central Committee of the Partyitself that officially launched the RedGuards movement on August 18;1966, by giving them a 16-point char-ter which became, at the same time,the charter of the cultural revolutionitself, As regards the CYL it has

been reformed and not at all dissolv-ed and it is from the latter's ranksthat a large number of Red Guardscame,

Two slanders are disposed of easilyhere, Adhikari says that "the leader-ship does not expect the Party orga-nisations at all levels to come forwardto rouse the masses for the move-ment", Mohit Sen is even bolder.AccordinK to him the CC resolution"calls upon the Red Guards to 'dis-miss from their leading posts all thosein authority who are taking a capital.ist road'." (our italics). Let the textof the resolution itself answer thesecharges: "What the Centra,k<:om-'mittee of the Party demands of theParty Committees at all levels is thatthey persevere in giving correct leader-ship, . ,boldly arouse the masses .. ,·and dismiss from their leading postsall those in authority who are takingthe capitalist road", (our italics),

ExcessesThe movement has undoubtedly

been accompanied by some excessesand, in some cases, serious breaches 01discipline. But in such a vast move-ment where for the first time in his-tory hundreds of millions are "storm-ing heaven" these excesses were notunexpected, least of all by the partyleadership, as is evident from theCC resolution itself. But there islittle to show that the mOre extre-mist Red Guards have acted on or-ders from higher quarters. As themovement spread to different cities,the authorities, though expressing"firm support" and approved of theRed Guards' actions saw the need toissue instructions to them. Thus thePeoPle's Daily in its editorial ofAugust 28 wrote, "The 16-point de-cision drawn up under the personaldirection of Mao Tse-tung points outthat the struggle should be conduct-ed by reasoning, not by coercion orforce. This is applicable not only tothe handling of contradictions amongthe people, but also to the struggleagainst those who are taking the capi-talist road. The Red Guards andalI other revolutionary organisationsof the young people should". reso-lutely carry out the 'three main rulesof discipline and eight points for at-tention' stipulated by ChairmanMao,l adhere to mass discipline, de-fend the people's interest and defendState property". On August 31 washeld the second mass rally on TienAn Men attended by half a million

MARCH 3, 1967

NOW

COMMENTATOR

Retribution In States

from Peking that Mao, placing the cultu-ral revolution in the historical perspective,pointed out at the meeting that from thevery beginning of the Chinesc Rcvolutionthe youth constituted its striking force. Atthe same time the fundamental policy wasto unite all the forces that onc could unite.Some "puritans" asked that only the Leftshould be united. "r have always beenagainst such attitudes", addcd Mao.

its hold on the electorate. If trendsin Bihar and Orissa have run coun-ter to this tendency, there are goodreasons. Bihar must necessarily beregarded as an exception to anytheory that can possibly supply anall·India explanation for the resultsof the present election; and Orissahas not unexpectedly yielded ~ood re-sults for the Opposition precIsely be-cause in a compact, though back-ward, State the problem of puttingtogether a vote-getting machinerythat works has not been beyond theOpposition's limited resources. In thethird and final category of what maybe called "middle States", like Guja-rat, Maharashtra, Mysore and AndhraPradesh, the Congress has done aboutas well as was generally expected,Such a rough and ready analysis goessome way towards explaining theaberrations of the election results asa whole. From the poor showing ofthe Congress in West Bengal andDelhi the paper wants the party tolearn how grievously it has had topay for the luxury of factionalismand its inability to exercise disciplineover its membership. The, Opposi-tion, for its part, would be in a bet-ter position to offer a strong challengeto the governing party at elections ifonly it could pool resources and fuseideologies so as to offer coherent al-ternative, not merely to produce asynthetic and expedient unity whichis liable to develop cracks and fissuresas soon as the early euphoria of pow-er has thinned out.

In a lengthy advice to the Congresson choice of allies Patriot says thatit will be extremely unwise for Con-gressmen to form government in States

of Mao (January, 1967) to the leaders ofthe Cultural Revolution seem to be particu-larly significant. In course of a meetingof the Cultural Revolutionary Commtssionhe is reported to have warned the leadersagainst extreme "Leftism" and asked themto try for the largest possible union of themasses (News given in Red Guards'posters in Peking on January 13, 1967).The Yugoslav press agency Tanjug repor"ts

Th Press~

WITH the picture at the Centrestill somewhat fuzzy news-

papers had to confine their com--ments last week to the election re-sults in the States, The debacle ofthe Congress party in eight of theStates provided the Press not merelywith ample material to comment up-on but also an opportunity to read-just itself and discover virtues whereit had so long found none, In theStates where the Swatantra and theJana Sangh have emerged in strengththis may not be a difficult task, forthey have always received a measureof support from newspapers, thoughnot on the same loud note as did theCongress, But in the- States wherethe people have expressed the prefer-ence for left parties discarding right-ist forces of all brands the papers arein a predicament. How the Calcuttapapers, the general policy of some ofwhom has been to criticise the Centreto exploit the grievances of the peo-ple to maintain circulation and pro-pitiate, at the same time, the Con-gress Government and party bosses onthe State level, steer themselves inthe present situation will naturallybe watch~d with amused interest.

In a general review of the electionresults in the States The HindustanTimes says that the Congress has beendecisively rejected in those education-ally advanced States, like Madras andKerala, where the Opposition hasbeen able to sink inter-party differ-ences and present a united front. Inthose States generally acknowledged tobe "backward", the ruling party has-in the case of some States barely,in o~hers rather more comfortably- .been able to do no more than retain

Red Guards. In presence of Maoand other top leaders, Lin Piao askedthem to pay attention to the 16-points and "to distinguish who areour enemies and who are our friends".He then added, "Don't hit people.This applies too in the struggleagainst those persons in power whoare taking the capitalist road andagainst the landlords, rich peasants,counter-revolutionaries, bad elementsand rightists, Struggling against themby coercion or force can only touchtheir skins. Only by reasoning is itpossible to touch their souls", Appa-rently this was not enough, for thePeoPle's Daily on September II ad-mitted that "certain regional elementsand certain persons in responsiblepositions have been violating the. I&-point decision of the Central Com-mittee", Another mass rally was heldin Peking on September II. LinPiao, while again praising the RedGuards for achieving "brilliant re-sults" called on the young revolution-aries "to learn from the workers, pea-sants and soldiers, learn from theirextremely fine revolutionary standardand their most thoroughgoing revo·lutionary spirit, learn from their senseof organisation and discipline and allother fine qualities", All later direc-tives from the party and the Govern-ment have been in the samespirit.2 The basic attitude, however,remains as stated in the 16-point decision of the CC: "Revolu·tion cannot be so very refined, sogentle, so temperate, kind, courteous,restrained, magnanimous, Let themasses educate themselves in thisgreat revolutionary movement andlearn to distinguish between rightand wrong and between correct andincorrect ways of doing things",

(To be concluded)

1These were drawn up by Mao duringthe civil wars ("and the war of resistanceagainst Japan and later adopted by the PLA.

Three Main Rules pf Discipline are:(i) Obey orrl -s in all your actions, (ii) Donot take" mgle needle or piece of threadfrom the masses, (ii) Turn in everythingcaptured.

The Eight Points for Attention are:(i) Speak politely, (ii) 'Pay fairly for whatyou buy, (iii) Return everything you bor-row, (iv) Pay for anything you damage,(v) Do not hit or swear at people, (vi) Donot damage crops, (vii) Do not take liber-ties with women, (viii) Do not ill treatcaptives.

2 In this connection the latest directives

MARCH 3, 1967 21

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NOW

in which their party has been reduc-ed to a minority with the help ofindependents or by tempting mem-bers in other parties to come over.Where the Congress has lost its capa-city to form governments it should becontent to be in the Opposition. TheCongress should accept the verdict ofthe vote and allow the parties whofought it to form governments. Suchgovernments may not be stable; butneither will Congress governmentsformed on the basis of amoral powerpolitics be. Political stability doesnot mean unity between politicalbosses 'brought by Opposition settle-ments. The Congress has been expe-rimenting with such "unity" with-in its own house for a number ofyears and has learnt that in the longterm it neither benefits itself northe country. The paper feels thatthe central leadership of the party, ifit really wants to win the people'sconfidence, should insist on its follow-ers being content to remain as Oppo-sition parties unless a coalition with"progressive groups and individuals"is formed at the Centre itself. Thestrength of the Congress party in Par-liament cannot be such that it willbe able to say with self-confidencethat effective administration could becarried on and 'progressive policiesimplemented. without the help oflike-minded groups and individuals.The possibilities of such a coalitionat the Centre can, however, be in-vestigated only after the Congress issure of its own mind. If it still be-lieves in planning and leading thepeople towards socialism, its allies canonly be parties who accept the so-cialist outlook and programmes. If analliance on the basis of ideology anda programme of work is made possi-ble at the Centre with other Leftparties, it will be easy to pick andchoos(' supporters who can givestrengA1 to State administrations inwhich hones Congressm~n "tgo canplay their dUt role. Hasty and op-portunistic efforts to buy support withpromise of office will further reducethe prestige of the Congress.

'Hanging On To PowerThe Statesman also is against the

Congress seeking outside support toform governments in some of theStates in which it is in a minority.The Congress had done it in the past,but the analogy hardly applies, for"Congress manipulations to hang onto power were less of an affront to

MARCH 3, 1967

public opinion then than would bethe case today". The paper says thatafter the drubbing the party has re-ceived at the hands of the electorateover large parts of the country, itwould be folly to ignore the voters'desire for a change. It commends the"rare good sense" of the Congressleadership in West Bengal in stand-ing aside "to let others have ago",even though the combined strength ofthe two Opposition electoral alliancesis two less than its own. If the Con-gress respects the moral right of theOpposition to provide an alternativegovernment, offering cooperation onsensible legislation. by the newcomers,its own image might improve in theprocess. A spell out of office couldhelp to rid the organisation of deadwood' and restore to it the contactwith the people it once had. Moreimportant still, a change of govern-ment might even bring about achange in the popular temper by re-kindling the sense of responsibilitythat was ebbing away during the longyears of Congress monopoly of office.A people reawakened to a sense oftheir own power need not go burn-ing trams and post offices to expresstheir feelings. Prescribing the samere.cipe for some other States, like Pun-jab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh,the paper suggests that Bihar shouldbe an exception, for that State is in aclass by itself. No party, nor even acoalition, - looks like being able tooffer stability. With the worst monthsof drought immediately ahead, theproper solution is to take the Stateunder President's Rule for a shortperiod. This may hurt the am our-pro pre of the politicos but it willcertainly save lives.

The IJndian Express, which pub-lishes an edition from Madras and is,therefore, to an extent in the sameplight as some Calcutta papers, saysthat the rout of the Congress inMadras, with the Congress Presidentand the Chief Minister among thelarge number of leading personalitiesdefeated, should be ascribed to popu-lar factors which the Government,obsessed with rather distant objec-tives, ignored or minimised. Theelectorate's verdict is not a repudia-tion of the Congress, Government'sachievements in industrialisation, ex-pansion of power supply and the like,but a condemnation of its failures torealise that the day-to-day needs ofcommon man are equally import.ant.Instead of making stro~g efforts to

bring down the high cost of living,the Government offered excuses' or,what was more exasperating, produc-ed academic arguments why the costof 'living should be high in a deve-loping economy. The Government'sobstinacy about Hindi alienated thewhole body of students and manyeducationists. While the Congressleaders approached the election cam-paign with complacency and lethargy,their opponents, marshalled by theleaders of the Dravida MunnetraKazhagam with vigour. and realismi,n a united front, made the most oftheir opportunities. The paper saysthat there are many issues on whichthe DMK Government will have tomove wisely. Its election promiseof cheap rice would have to be re-deemed. It would be interesting tosee how it does this, for the nation-alisation of the bus services wouldnot bring in the money needed.Then there are some social problemswhich need very careful handling.The DMK should not be a prisonerof its past in these matters. A diffi-~ult task faces the new ruling partyIII Madras. The electorate, in its re-vulsion from Congress mistakes, hasnow given it an opportunity to proveits worth, to show that it can act asbeneficiently as it could speak power-fully from public platforms. Thepeople of Madras expect much fromthe party.

West BengalCommenting on the election re-

sults in West Bengal HindusthanStandard says that in no uncertainterms have the electors expressed theirlack of confidence in the party whichhaS" been in uninterrupted powerever since independence. The Con-gress still enjoys the "dubious dis-tinction" of being the largest singlepolitical group in the State Assem-bly. But that is of littl ·gnificance.It is abundantly plain that the peo-ple of the State do not want theCongress party to continue in officein West Bengal and democratic pro-priety demands that its mandatesh,ould be fully respected. BreakingWIth the past the paper says that itwould be wrong to hold that thefall of the Congress has been causedby the election strategy of the Oppo-sition alone. What was decisive, wasnot the limited unity achieved bythe Opposition but the corrosion offaith in the abilit.y 'Of the Cono-ressto deliv~r the goods. If popular

23

MARCH 3, 1967

in the process he has not done anyviolence to the theme or to the basicplot line nor taken greater libertythan what a film director is normallyand perfectly entitled to take.

Matira Manisha is about a smallfamily in a typical village in deltaicOrissa. The paterfamilias (Sam Pa- /dhan), ancient and upright, havingas deep roots in the soil as the oldbanyan tree he is seen restil)g underat the beginning of the film; the eld-er son (Barju), virtuous and devot-ed, a village Rama who gives up allto be true to the oromise he hadgiven his dying fatll t; the youngerbrother (Chakari), ~arefree, fickleand affectionate who drea, .s of tra-velling to big cities; the lWO wives(Harabau in the book and Netra-mani) , loving, testy and jealous at thesame time; the money-lend~r (HariMisra) , a small-time villain who subt-ly instigates the younger brother todemand a partition in the family.Familiar characters all, but not forthat any the less marked by indivi-dual traits. They have, moreover,been shrewdly placed by the directorin the wider context of social change.The clash between the two brotherswhich is the dramatic high pOilU inthe film, has been made to subservethe wider import of a confrontationbetween two generations,-a rootedallegiance to the old order with itssimple but fierce collective loyaltiesfacing the assertive aspirations ofyouth stirred by a changing world ip.-to demanding individual recogni.tion.

Chakari is of course not consciousof his representative character. Tohim his newly married wife, an ob-ject of wonder and joy, is something

-he possesses exclusively, somethingwhich kindles his longing to breakout and be on his own. WiselyMrinal Sen avoids making N etra-moni an active propellent of Cha-kari's growing cupidity. The changecomes almost entirely from withinand has been shown in a series ofextraordinarily tender sequences. Thesequences where Chakari is alone inhis room with his wife-watching hercut the nuts, tie the jingler to herankle and inducing her to dance,ecstatically describing the dream toher-have, for poetic feeling andfreshness, few equals in the IndianCinema. Mrinal Sen's growing mas-tery of the medium has rarely beenseen to better advantage than inthese scenes.

Mrinal Sen's LatestKIRONMOY RAHA

IT may cause reasonable surprIsethat Mrinal Sen should have

made, what is perhaps his best filmso far in a language other than hisown. It is true that neither the'catalogue of common happenings' ofa peasant fami!J rooted to a patchof land in Cuttack district nor theuncomplicated personae of KalindiCharan Panigrahi's well-known novelcould have been beyond the know-ledge or apprehension of as keen andperceptive a director as Mrinal Sen.Nor is Oriya's linguistic consanguin-ity far removed from Bengali. Never-theless, and despite the ventures ofPolanski, Truffaut and now Kurosawait remains a fact that after the majormutation the cinema underwent onthe coming of sound, few directors ofnote have attempted or made filmsin languages they did not intimatelyknow. That Mrinal Sen has done itand has, in the bargain, made an out-standing film is a hopeful event inthe otherwise gloomy world of thecinema in India today.

It is possible that the marked em-phasis on formal techniques and thereliance in the first half of the filmon the purely visual-a near-docu-mentary style-were dictated by theobstacles Mrinal Sen faced in crossinlTthe linguistic barrier. He was alsgobviously concerned with investingthe characters with a more intellec-tually acceptable motivation and amore egregious identity than are tobe found in the novel. The script,written by the director himself, affords

·some clues as to the manner he hasgone about in doing this. The trans-ference necessarily involved changes,selection and partial rescission. But

confidence in the ruling party hadrenrained unshaken, no tactics, how-ever shrewdly planned, could haveoverturned its apple cart in WestBengal. The votes cast in the elec-tion have been largely negative-adesire for change is clearly reflectedbut no clear indication as to the na-ture of that change. The votingtrends sugge3t that the electorate hasrejected both extremes. Since nosiob,e party has been able to achievea clear leaGl the ministry-making inthis State is not without its difficul-ties which, however, are not insuper-able. It would have been whollyrepugnant to the basic principles ofparliamentary democracy if the Con-gress had attempted to form a min-Istry. The right of forming a min-istry is unquestionably the Opposi-tion's, and it is for its leaders to de-cide how they will go about it.

Extending its "warmest congratu-lations" to Mr Ajoy Mukherjee, "theindisputable architect of the specta-cular triumph of the non-Congressforces", Amrita Bazar Patrika saysthat here is a man who with thebacking of the components of thealliance should be able to clear theaugean stable and give West Bengala clean and firm administration. Theleaders of the coalition in anticipa-tion of being called up to form gov-ernment have already turned their_attention to the formation of anagreed programme which, if pro-perly implemented, may lift WestBengal from the morass into whichit haS f,Sunk. In the "legacy" thatthe 20-year C0ngress regime has leftthe coalition leaders the paper in-cludes the difficult food situation andthe "parlous state" of law and order.Monopoly of power for long yearshad corrupted many of the COJ;lgressleaders absolutely. The coalitionleaders should be able to bring tothe affairs of government the moralauthority which the outgoing regimein its last days lacked woefully. Themillions who have voted for a changeof government want a firm govern-ment, firm in upholding justice, inpunishing bullies and wrong-doersand in protecting the weak. If thereis no political corruption in itsdiverse forms at the top a healthyclimate congenial to the flowering ofthe best. that is in West Bengal willbe at once created.

24·_

India has started on the right path.L. B. Johnson

NOWTechnical Skill

Tbe film is, in fact, replete withevidence of the director's technicalskill. There is an assurance in thecamera set-ups and movements; thecuts are effective; the timing is rarelyat fault; the transitions through as-sociative images and sound are ima-ginative; the freeze shots and the useof dynamic frame at one place comeoff well; the dream sequence is a tourde force; the editing is taut withoutbeing nervy. But with all that thereare at places, I regret to say, sugges-tions of intrusiveness, lingering signsof a self-consciou~ preoccu pationwith form. It is because such signsare not there that the scenes of inti-macy and the many semi-documen-tary outdoor shots have become somemorable and cinematically pure.

By comparison, the· sequenceswhich provide the external correla-tive of Chakari's change-the scenesdepicting the rise in the price ofpaddy-have an unmistakable st mpbf intellectual imposition. Can, forinstance, the simple tale of a youngerbrother in a remote village in Orissademanding a share in the meagrepatrimony bear linking up with Hit-ler's aggression? The rapidly exe-cuted sequences in which the direc-.tor employs the idioms of contem-porary creative cinema include onewhere the camera pulls back from amenacingly advancing Swastika fillingthe screen, and the paddy procure-ment agent's cdmic face freezing in-to a grim likeness of Hitler's. Di.dthe change in Chakari need so vio-lent and distant a stimulus? In spite,or perhaps because, of its dazzlingdisplay of technical brilliance, Ifound this particular bravura passageintrusive and therefore discordant.

But neither this nor a few otherminor blemishes-an inexplicable onewas the lighting in the night scenesin Chakari's room-are of much con-sequence in the assessment of thefilm a, a whole. They do not invali.date the 11m's claim to be one of thefew recenL Indian films from whichone gets a feeling of reassurance.

Now is available fromMr S. P. Chatterjee,Steel Market,Statesman Office,Durgapur.

MARCH 3, 1967

The ActorsMrinal Sen has been well served

by all his associates but, most of all,by the band of actors he was able togather round him. It would be un-fair to pick out a-nyone for particularpraise. Almost without exceptionthey have responded magnificently tothe demands made on them. It wasa revelation to see Sarat Pu jari(Barju), Prasanto Nanda (Chakari),Master Mania (Sam Padhan) , Dukhi-ram Swain (Hari Misra), and Sujata(Netramoni), never faltering or fail-ing to bring out with wonderfulfacility the fleeting nuances" of amood or situation, and yet never at-tempting to tun away with the roles.Seeing Sarat Pujari or PrasantoNanda in other Oriya films I hadnot, I confess, suspected their re-markable gifts. The director hasbeen fortunate in having such a richsource of acting talent.

But his fortune would have beenof no avail if he did not also havethe capacity to draw out the best inhis actors, or if in this, as in variousother activities that in the cinemago to make the end product, his con-trol had been less in evidence. Theachievement is all the more credit-able because o( the language barrier.For dialogue, the obvious firsthurdle, he has of course been ablyserved by Gopal Chotaray who in histranslation haE..caught the flavour ofthe rural dialect of Cuttack no· lessfaithfully than the actors in the deli-very of their lines.

For the other obvious hurdle, mu-sic, Mrinal Sen has not perhaps beenas fortunate. Which probably ex-plains the limited use of folk musicin the film-a point which one, if heis overtly conscious of the rich storeof folk music of the region and meansto be carping, may make and regret.Not that popular folk tunes like thebhajan during Sam Padhan's mono-logue and th~ tune of the traditionalsong of the raja festival phula baulabeni during the montage of the rainyseason, have not been effectivelyused. But somehow· they arenot very evocative and a feeling lin-gers that the director - has been ra-ther cautious and chary-perhaps awise thing to be in the circumstances.It has not caused, in my opinion, anygreat loss to the aesthetic merits ofthis distinguished film which deservesa much wider exhibition than are·gional one.

Natanatyam' s SankarBy A DRAMA CRITIC

THE harm that the BiswaroopaTheatre does to the Bengali

stage is somewhat redeemed by itspatronage extended to many dramatroupes in various forms. The autho-rities of this stage have formed anorganisation named Biswaroopa NatyaUnnayan Parikalpana Parishadwhich sponsors competitions, festivals,lectures and symposiums and lets outthe stage every Saturday at a mini-mum rental to enable young groupsto stage their plays. On February 18Natanatyam, an amateur troupe fromHowrah, staged its Sankar under theauspices of this beautiful organisa-tion. ••

Sankar, a zoIa~sque naturalist play,deals with people who do not knowwhere they stand in our maladjustedsocial pattern. In a bustee, two setsof people-the victims of communal-ism and the sufferers of economicexploitation-live together and findtheir interests to be common; in thehour of ordeal caused by a riot, thesegeographical and social outsiders mis-trust each other, kill each other, butinevitably, at the end, fight togetheragainst their common enemy.· Theyoung author, ]agamohon Mazumdar(also the director of the play), dis-plays evident signs of honesty andpassion; he suceeds in creatingsome· very moving situations. Un-fortunately, about the middle of theplay; he loses his control over theform; too many cinematic flashbacksand 100 much of fictional descriptive-ness reduce the dramatic tension tofreezing point.

The production, though tidy andinspired, suffers heavily from th'i:bungling with the light and the mu-

25

sic: The feeble tunes coming froma 1914-model tape-recorder producean effect of bathos instead of inten-sifying the pathetic moments. Theman in charge of the switchboardcommits greater blunders; the man-ner in which he dims and glares thespot-lights is entirely out of tunewith the generally realisting temperof the playas well as the production.

Natanatyam has in Kamal Mukher-jee, Harisankar Banerjee, PrasantoMukherjee and Jagamohon Mazum-dar some actors of considerable power.But they need a little brushing sothat they may be shorn of the rustyremnants of a ranting school ofacting.

Letters

Tasks AheadThe much-awaited fourth general

elections are over and the resultsknown. Now is the time for the pro-gressive forces in West Bengal to re-assess their position vis-a-vis the newsituation that has arisen. The lead-ers of the anti-Congress front Itave de-cided to run the government whichis already in a hopeless state as a re-sult of Congress misrule during thelast 18 years. Really, this is going tobe a feat worth watching.

What are the immediate tasks?To fix the minimum, the new rulershave to give food to the people at areasonable price, hold the price lineand provide employment. At thesame time they have to alert the peo-ple against the forces of reaction thathave temporarily gone underground.Agents-provocateurs will beat up peo-ple'in khadi and hurl bombs at thehouses of Congress bosses, of course,with the latters' prior consent. Theso-called "impartIal" newspapers willcome out with touched-up frontpagephotographs of these "orgies and van-dalism" in order to discredit the Gov-ernment. Add to this the presenceof ugly American agents in so manyspheres.

Incidentally, the CP (M)'s theoryof 'polarisation' and its pre-electionclaim of routing the so-called Dangeclique in West Bengal have beenproved otherwise. The CPI, on theother hand, will find that it made un-justified claims on at least ten As-sembly seats and one Lok Sabha seat.

26

NOW

By doing so it only helped Congresswin these seats. This strife be-tween the two factions of theerstwhile CPI has brought into -playcerta}n ominous forces. Perhaps, theCommunists do not realise that theyhave now to fight against so manyenemies. Or, do they?

ABHEEKDASGUPTACalcutta

Newspapers have suddenly turnedlachrymose over the stabbing of one21-year-old Congress worker in NorthCalcutta. These papers were notmuch worried over the reign of terrorthat started right after the successfulBangIa Bandh last year in Belghoria.It seems that the newspapers are lessconcerned with the stupidity of stab-bing than with wrecking the publicimage of what the leftists might be.But there is a limit to mischief-mak-ing and the helmsmen of the news-papers need no fresh warning that_people may not forgive them again-they have only to remember howtheir white-collar workers fared dur-ing the food movement.

Will the new government look in-to the affairs of Belghoria and sizeup the police officials for their per-formance there?

PULAK DEDum Dum

Now that the villains of the Con-gress party have been sent about theirbusiness, I wish to remind our newleaders of the injustic done to someof the President College students justbecause they rose in protest againsta corrupt and inefficient college ad-ministration. The fury with whichthe college, in collusion with theMinistry and the party' boss, set outto ruin the students, is known to all.In spite of repeated demands fromthe public no impartial enquiry washeld into the gnevances of the stu-dents, nor was any attempt made tohold a thorough departmental probeinto the college affairs.

The student unrest was only onesymptom of the disease which is fastdestroying the premier educationalinstitution in West Bengal. / Con-gress and pro-Congress elements inthe teaching staff made the collegesurrender its autonomy to the Mi-nistry and the party boss; it is theywho promoted suspicion and distrustamong the teachers themselves. It isthey who set the police and plain.clothesmen on the students and a fewof the teachers.

Sir, when the voices of self-interestand abject knavery chose to remainsilent on the affairs of PresidencyCollege, you carried out the crusadefor truth. The Congress is out. Whatabout an inquiry into' PresidencyCollege affairs?

PRADEEPSENCalcutta

A silent revolution has taken p. ,cein West Bengal. Congress m.rule has come to an end. Theday on which the defeat of AtulyaGhosh and P. C. Sen was de-clared was a red-letter one in the his-tory of West Bengal. The widespreadjubilation over the victory of oppo-sition leaders proved that the Con-gress leaders were not only unpopularbut also hated. Of course, had itbeen a literate State like Kerala, thesemen would have tumbled longago. As the Congress leaders failedto improve the lot of the commonman, the discontented people buriedthe Congress rule. The oppositionrreaders have been 'voted to power,they should now try heart and soulto improve the lot of the distressedpeople. Needless to mention, Con-gressmen would now try to create

. chaos in the State to keep the oppo-sition leaders on tenterhooks. Theopposition leaders should beware ofthis fact.

AMAL BAsuCalcutta

In 1947 it was an occasion for ju.bilation all over India, for the coun-try had gained freedom from colonialrue. After two decades today peoplein West Bengal are delighted becausethey have gained freedom from Con-gress misrule.

It is true that the food and hous-ing problems cannot be solved easily.But the flew government, if it isformed, can abclish the remains offeudal rule, eliminate corruption,stop malpractices in trading, andtackle the problem of maldistributionof food. That will bring consider-able benefit to the people.

SILA RoyBankura

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