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THE BLACK BEGINNING

Do we remember how 1966 began? The first day of the year left noundying impression, t~ough major and tragic events occurred later

in January. But it will not be easy- to forget how 1967 descended uponthe lives of people in Calcutta. Many thousands of them will carry the

. black memory for quite some time; theirs is memory of direct experience.Others, not only in this city, shared the experience in other ways. But allwill remember the first morning of the fourth election year of the world'slargest democracy. On that morning they saw what Indian democracymeant. They had seen it before, but seldom in such striking circumstances.

The people who had collected at the Eden Gardens had no moresinister purpose than to watch a singularly unsubversive~ game. Most ofthem had waited for long for this one occasion on which they could forgetthe deepening gloom of their daily existence. They had paid, for them,a heavy price in money and effort. They got their return in a savageattack by the police. Nobody. escaped the tear-gas, but that is a minormatter; over 150 people were hit by police lathis. The wild ferocity withwhich the police beat many of them is still the talk of all who had towat~h the gruesome scene. Trapped and helpless, not a few of themwondered if it was going to be another Jalianwalla Bagh.

Details in such a case are always blurred, but the main facts areclear. Far too many tickets had been sold; why and by whom can easilybe established. It is no secret that many people obtained tickets throughinfluential men in the Congress party or on the blackmarket that flourishedwith the party's blessings. With less than two months before the elec-tions party bosses apparently thought it necessary to oblige more peoplethan could be accommodated in the Eden Gardens. Those directly incharge of the arrangements might have had their own reasons to overselland evidently offered little resistance to requests or orders from powerfuland profitable sources. The Cricket Association of Bengal must bearprimary responsibility; from Congress politicians, the public has longceased to expect the slightest concern for anything but their immediatesel£-in terest.

The C.A.B. will have to answer for much; if th,e trouble is traced toa few individuals, the public will at least know some of the agenciesthrOlw;h which corruption has spread even into the field of sport. ForSunday's events, however, the direct responsibility clearly rests with theguardians of law and order. The pet1ple who had gone to the Eden Gar-dens were prepared to put'up with every inconvenience and discomfort,but the minions of the law suddenly went berserk. The way a large packof policemen and Home Guards beat up an elderly man, for no crimethat anybody saw or can think of, must have impressed the visitine; WestIndians most of all. We, after all, have seen such brave deeds before,thoug-h never at a cricket match.

Mr P. C. Sen, whme men have set a record in controlling sport.. haspromised an enquirv. Not an enquiry into the conduct of the police alone,it will he a comprehensive enquiry into Sunday's events and will miturallytake time. No dOllht he hopes that if this promise can assuag-e publicfeeling, he may avoid an uncomfortable issue before the elections. If

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BOOK REVIEW 19

TAGO AT BISWAROOPABy A DRAMA CRITIC.. 19

AWARD OR AFFRONT ?PITAMBARGUIN 17

LETTERS 20

THE PRESSTRUCE OF AMRITSAR 14

ANIRUDHAGUPTA 9

RHODESIA: THE PRO-BLEM

DELHI LETTERCOWED Dowx

FROM A POLITICALCORRF.SPO'DENT 6

NOW

On Other Pages

COMMENTS 4

Vol. 3: No. 14:: January 6, 1967

CALCUTTA DIARYJ. MOHAN II

A GROWl IG GAPRANJIT K. SAU 12

EDITOR: SAMAR SEN. PRINTED BYHIM AT MODERN INDIA PRESS,7 RAJA SUBODH MULLICK SQUAR1i:,CALCUTIA-13 AND PUBLISHED BY HIMFOR NATION TRUST FROM 54 GANESH

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

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avoiIe sltatodouericviolparrnabrithepeasuralslaw:Thcoasglepredeof IpIeinou~calgreth/paSta

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assessment of the Chief Minist.eperhaps his own sources of informtion advise him otherwise.

The earnestness with which thopposition parties have plunged intoelectioneering should have dispelledany suspicion that. they were bent 0

disrupting the election. In fact, itmay be held against them that intheir preoccupation with the electionthey are allowing public interest tgo by default. There have been sur·renders and inglorious retre;r1:s in recent weeks to avoid a confrontationwith the Government. It is not somuch the so-called firmness of theGovernment as the reluctance of theopposition parties to risk any conflictwhich may upset electioneering thaiis responsible for the premature deathof a number of agitations over legi.timate grievances.

What has prompted the oppositionparties to give electioneering toppriority among their current activi'ties is not known; perhaps they hopeto be able to dislodge the Congressfrom office in a few more States. Evenif such hopes materialise, of whatavail that will be is a question towhich the Kerala precedent providesan answer. A possible alternati\"emay be found in West Bengal wheremany of the Opposition members ofthe Assembly have spent more thanhal~ their legislative term in jail.Such steps will no doubt expose thedemocratic· pretensions of the rulingparty; but not all will agree that fur·ther unmasking is necessary or thatit will shame the Government intopostures more in consonance with itsprofessions.

Democratic processes are underthreat not so much from the opposi.tion parties as from the Government.According to a report, up to Novem-ber 4 last the police had fired on 43occasions this year in different partl;of the country, against 33 last yearand 12 in the year preceding. Thereport does not say how many roundswere fired or whether "occasion"means series of firings to tackle asituation. With the known proclivityof the Government to understatepolice violence the latter is perhapstrue. Moreover, police muskets havenot been allowed to rust in unuse inthe remaining weeks of the year.Incomplete and obscure though thefigures are, they reveal, to an extent,how official violence has been mount·ing in the last three) ears. Of lesserforms of violence, like lathi charge

mitments need be made until thepattern becomes clearer afterFebruary.

The elections will bring about nomajor change, but the immediate out,come may not be altogether unpleas-ing to our masters abroad. Both theLeftist forces and the Right reactionwill make' some gains and there isbound to be an overall diminution otCongress strength. But, iq the im-mediat.e context, there may be twofactors to gladden \Vashington'sheart. First, in spite of Kerala and-to a lesser extent-some other States,the Right reaction may gain morethan the Leftist forces. The secondand more important factor is thatwithin the Congress party, which willcertainly remain in power, Rightisttrends are already on the ascendantand may become more decisive afterthe elections.

The outcome may well be furtheraccentuation of the alienation be-tween politics and the people. Thepopular mood is becomjng progres-sively Leftist but such are the mys-teries of party politics that, both inthe ruling and in the oppositionparties, the Rightist forces may regis-ter a net gain in the country as awhole. The Leftist parties need tonote this paradox and examine howit is created and sustained.

NOW

Peaceful PollingThere are two equally obnoxious

assumptions behind the Union HomeMinister's reported decision to con-vene a conference of leaders of oppo-sition parties to discuss measures toensure smooth and peace~ul election.One of these is that, if there is anydisturbance of the peace, the respon-sibility will be of the Opposition;the other, that the Congress is keento maintain peace. This is not thefirst time that Mr Chavan has ~prungthese views on the country. One ofhis first tasks on moving over toHome from Defence was to takecounsel with the Chief Ministers re-garding the measures to be adoptedto prevent violence and disorder inthe week of polling. Most of theChief Ministers, including that of hishome State, Maharashtra, had assuredhim that they did not anticipate anytrouble; even Mr P. C. Sen came outwith a qualified endorsement that notrouble on a large scale was appre-hended in West Bengal. It seemsMr Chavan is not satisfied with the

And AfterWhat will follow will probably be

worse than the beginning. After ariceless year-end, people 10 Calcuttawere promised less than one-third oftheir normal rice ration for the firstweek of the new year. But suspen-sion of rice supply has already givenan upward push to rice prices on theopen market, not only around Cal-cutta but in ot.her parts of West Ben-gal as well. Whoever can afford itis buying rice on the blackmarket;faith in the certainty of rationedsupply has been suddenly shaken.Shrewd traders have never had suchfaith, but now is the time for themto corner stocks. The effect of theiroperations will cause further panicamong ordinary consumers. TheYicious circle may denude the marketof all supplies in a few months and •there is little prospect of the Govern-ment building up sufficient stocks forrationed distribution.

"Vest Bengal will not be alone inits misery. Kerala is faced with asimilar crisis. \Vheat-eating areasmay look forward to supplies fromabroad, but there is small assuranceat the beginning of the year. TheUnited States. for example, thinksthat a little more privation may havea salutary effect on Indian leadership;it might force India to follow thecorrect line in national and interna-tional afIairs. Beggars, after all,should behave like beggars, at leastto the almsgivers. Since the electionsma) have some influence on how In-dia will behave, no long-term com-

his party is returned to power, thefindings of the enquiry will not. reallymatter {or another five years. Andthe findings need not be unfavour-able.

The happenings at the Eden Gar-dens are not an isolat.ed phenomenon.After the March-April upheaval thepolice preferred to lie low. With theex-Defence Minister now in charge ofthe Home portfolio, new slogansare strident-'the ,Government mustgovern'. But people who are unfitto govern always resort to strong-armtactics as the easiest way out. It is,however, not. that easy. We have nota word to say in favour of the rowdieswho go into operation whenever massanger explodes, but we are not at allsurprised that some people are tem-pted to follow the heroic example set.up by the police on ew Year's Day.

5

The Hills Are Old

colleagues the few extra debat.ingpoints. Even so far as the parties inthe Opposition are concerned, MrKrishna Menon's entry into theirranks should be taken with a pinchof calm. Mr Menon may win a spec-tacular election victory, but it wouldstill be the victory of an individual.The Congress prestige might be dent.-ed a little, Mr Patil might suffer apersonal discomfiture, but the tota·lit.y of the situation would remain asit is. Whatever the Namierian viewof history, it is organisation andst,rength at the grassroots which couldconceivably thwart the march of re-action in this nation's domestic andforeign policies, not the erratic flam-boyance of individ,uals, even if theroster of such individuals occasionaJIyincludes a V. K. Krishna Menon,than whom, let us have the grace toacknowledge, nobody has done moreto raise he status and dignity of theunderdeveloped world in the foruq1of the United Nations.

And the entire Congress leadership,Mr Ghosh perhaps not excluded, havedone their damnedest to cajole, re-quest, entreat Mr Menon, honey, notto be silly, and to accept the Congress.ticket from just any other constitu-ency anywhere in lndia. Punishment,in the Congress manual of conduct,obviously assumes a very specific form.The man who was being punishedremained a permanent invitee tothe meetings of the Congress Work-ing Committee, and was even askedto draft the party's Election Mani-festo. For all one knows, if Mr Me-non had not decided to leave the Con-gress, one way of meting out punish-ment to him would have been to re-quisition his considerable speech-mak-ing abilities to boost Mr AtulyaGhosh's candidature in Bankura. Wehave little doubt that Mr KrishnaMenon would have been glad tooblige.

This precisely is the trouble withMr Menon. He has now made up hismind to quit the Congress and to"seek the suffrage of the people" ofNorth-East Bombay as an indepen-dent non-party candidate. He wants Mrs Indira Gandhi's air dash toto "vindicate the policies of social- Gauhati last week in spite of manyism, non-alignment and world peace" preoccupations in the capital suggestswhich are allegedly being S'ought to a more serious situation in the Assambe reversed by the present Congress hills than has been reported in theleadership. We hope Mr Menon will daily Press. Panic is. of course. awin the election handsomely, just as erincipal ingredient of politicalwe hope non-Congress, progressive thmkmg 11lIndIa toda~; and our pre-candidates will win elsewhere in the sent PrIme lVlIlllster IS particularlycountry. And yet we have to tell Mr panic-prone; but very little has beenMenon that, after all, he too is a disclosed to the world outside sincemere Johnny-corne-lately. Far be it the army was 'obliged to take over infrom us to question his integrity, A..iE1. Newspapermen have found itbut it is still legitimate to ask extremely difficult to visit the areaswhether Mr Menbn, till very re" of trouble; and official ~andouts arecently, was really endowed with the naturally treated with contempt bycourage of his integrity. The devia- the Press and the public. Nor is ittion of the c.ongress party from so- certain that the complexities of Assamcialism and non-alignment did not Congress: politi(:s did not at somestart occurring all of a sudden, and point enter the hills problem, whichMr Menon was not born yesterday itself is not as simple as representa-either. Why is it that Mr Krishna tives of the All-Party Hill Leaders'Menon's admission of the ills from Conference seek to make out. Thewhich the ruling party suffers-and private war between Mr B. P. Chalihathe ills which he now thinks cannot and Mr Dev Kanta Barooah hasbe cured from within-had to coin- more ramifications than is generallycide with the rejection of his appli- known outside.cation for renomination from North There is no evidence at all thatBombay? the t.alks in Gauhati yielded anything

Even without descending to the tangI?le. Exchange of vague plea-level of Mr Atulya Ghosh's disin- santnes has become the order of thegenuit.y, it should therefore be pos- day and constitutes New Delhi'ssible for the Congress party to discre- statecraft. There is less evidencedit Mr Menon in the ensuing cam- that the coming t.alks in Delhi willpaign, and there is no reason to 1)roduce anything more substantial.grudge Mr Patil, Mr Barve and the' .........-ndeed, the scepticism of the hills

NOW

Why does Mr Atulya Ghosh makea [001 of himself? Mr KrishnaMenon has been denied the Congressticket for the Bombay North-East LokSabha constituency, Mr Ghosh ex-plained last week at an election rally,as punishment for his inexcusablelapses as Defence Minister which ledto our debacle in October-November,1962. Those who fail on their job,Mr Ghosh seemed to infer, deserve tobe put on the mat.

Tread softly, dissenter. Theremay be other cases of failure in theGovernment of India; Mr Subrama-niam may be unable to either providefood or raise agricultural producti-vity; Mr Pati! may fail to stop therun of railway accidents; Mrs Gan-dhi may fail to provide the necessaryleadership the countrymen expect ofa Prime Minist.er. They are, how-ever,on this side of Mr Atulya Ghosh.

Ghosh On Menon

d tear-gassing, it has perhaps notn possible to keep' any account,

(or such actions have become part 01the normal daily routine of thepolice.

What happened at the Eden Gar·dens on the new-year's day showshow skilled the police have becomein the role of ay,ent provocateur.The ugly aftermath would have beenavoided if the police had not merci-lessly beaten up an innocent sper.-tator. There will be attempts nodoubt to pass the righteous anger ofcricket fans as an outburst of mobviolence incited by the oppositionparties, and a few more restraintsmay be imposed. But that will notbring peace, as it has not so far. Ifthe Home Minister really wantspeaceful polling, he wiP have to en-Sllrethat the police are held in leash;also such self-appointed defenders oflaw and order as Congress volunteers.That the Government has decided toconclude polling in as short a timeas possible-in West Bengal in a sin-gle day-shows that it does not ap-prehend any major trouble; itdepends on the willing cooperationof the opposition parties and the peo-ple and knows that it will get it. IfIn spite of that Mr Chavan fears anyoutbreak of violence, it must be be-cause he is not quite sure how Con-gressmen and, under their instigation,the police will behave if the rulingparty [aces a setback in some of theStates.

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activi-~y hopeongress:s. EvenIf whatjon toIrovides:rnative[ whereIbers ofre thann jail.lose the

rulinghat fur-or thatnt intowith its

people'li leaders has already beenmade explicit. At least some of themseem to be insisting on the pre-con-dition that talks can be held only onthe basis of the proposition of aseparate State. On the other hand,there appear to be certain sections ofplains opinion which cling to thetheory that to talk to the men of theA P H L C is itself a sign of un·pardonable weakness. Mr Chalihashowed in his Nagaland Peace Mis·sion days that he was strong enoughto ignore charges of weakness. Again,it was his initiative that took thePrime Minister to Gauhati; and onceagain he may be on the side of theangels. The noisy su~porters of atough policy have lIlt e understand-Ing ot the genume grIevances of thehills people, whose "togethernes,~"under the A P H L C may be exag"ge~ed but theIr lack of rapportwith the Assam administration is notto be doubted.

In the MilO and Mikir hills manyare Christians; it is no use pretend-ing that the Hindu majority in theplains view this with disapproval.Then, the hills people prefer to beeducated in English rather than

~i or Assamese. This is anothersource of friction. It is not true thatthe hills people are pwmtlve tribes;many are highly sophisticated. Theyalso see that their own tribalism hasnever known anything like the tribalwat:fare now in pro~ress within tbeCongress party. They have never

\.-been given the sense of participationthat is essential for running a demo·cratic administration. This is whythet want a separate State. knowlIlgfuJ well that its viability, economicas well as political, is ver mu in

uestlOn: IS angerous to ignoret lelr grievances; it is even moredangerous to attribute every protestof theirs as an ti-Indian or pro-Pakis.tani or pro-Chinese. People fromthe plains have to realise that theyhave to live with their brethren inthe hills, -whatever the shape of theirnoses. Perhaps the hills people toohave to appreciate that the men fromthe plains are not all devils. FromNew Delhi, however, it all must seemterribly remote; and there is muchto be said for a local solution. Thisis where Mr Chaliha may have animportant role to play; but Mrs Gan-dhi's professed sympathy for the hillfolk has to be shared bv the i'ntole-rant Hindu majority of her party be-fore any genuine understanding can

The Muslim VoteIt is not eno'ugh to have a secular

constitution. On ovember 7 thesadhus demonstrated in Delhi justwhat their idea of secularism is; butthere has been other, less explicit,evidence galore. The election' cam-paign, now beginning to be underway, will bring out the worst in mostof us. And the manner in whichIhost political parties are talkingabout the Muslim vote is not enhanc-ing the country's secular reputation.Those who thought that a vote was avote-sans colour, caste or religion-must have been bitterly disillusioned;and further disillusionment awaitsthem. The Muslim VOle seems a se·parate quantity, to be wooed in cer-tain areas and treated with contemptin others. To most Muslim votersIndia's secular protestations mustseem a cruel lllockery; and [or thisthe ruling party must take. its shareof blame. It is the ruIlIlg partywhich sets the pace; and the presentdangerous relapse of a kind of sub·dued communalism is doing the coun-try no good. '

There is no reason at all to thinkthat Muslims vote as Muslims whileHindus or Christians vote as secnlarcitizens of India that is nharat. Itwill, however, be ·idle to deny that asense of separateness exists. It is forthe Hindu majority 1.0 make the Mus-lim minority [eel thtit ,they are equalcitizens and not second-class. TheMuslinis too have to associate them-selves with the political currents ofthe country, not on the 4lasis of theirreligious persuasion but on that oftheir pofitical ideologies. In pre-independence India not all Muslimshelonged to the Muslim League.There were Muslim Socialists andCommunists; there still are some:Bllt the motivated .att.empt to lumpall Muslim'S as a single political quan-tity seems a dangerolls trend; and towoo them as such is as perniciou's ast.o ignore them as Muslims. Thereare policies to approve or disapprove;and the election battle must befought strictly on those.

Delhi Letter

Cowed DownFROM A POLITICAL

CORRESPONDENT

DENSE as the mist is over theCapital, it coincided with the

political fog that has blurred all con·tours for the moment. So much so,the Centre has not realised that theclumsy trick it has played on SantFateh Singh could in the long runlead to defeatist and separatist ten·dencies in strategic Punjab, and itssentimental involvement in the cowunder pressure could add to thestrength of Hindu communal forcesat the elections.

The large Indian and foreign Presscorps in Amritsar on Boxing Daycould vouch [or the Government's lossof nerve over the Sant's fast. It gavein, but under the counter-offensive ofHindu communalism tried to wriggleout of the commitment. In NewDelhi the next day, the Governmenttried to pretend that Mr HukamSi.lgh had nr mandate and even ifbe l-Jad one, he overstepped it. ItwaS even suggested that M1' HukamSingh did not speak to the Sant onthe Government's behalf. Bllt all ofliS saw him alight at Amritsa1' froman IAF aircraft. To get over the dis-comfiture, another story was invent·ed to buttress the Government's ver-sion--Lhat the Aka lis had charteredthe plane [or Mr Hukam Singh. Wedid not know that the JAIF had be-gun competing for c\lstom with thelAC and that anyone could chartel'the IAF plane complete with thecrew in their service uniform. At-least two leading papers tried to sellthe Government's version.

To liS in Amritsar, it was obviousthat the Sant had been given a pri-vate assurance that once he acceptedarbitration on Chandigarh and theBhakra complex, both these wouldgo to Punjab. At the same time, theHaryana leadship had been assuredby New Delhi that everything was"open" and the Prime Minister's ar·hitr()tion would decide things. In thecon[mion, no one seems to 'have ask-ed "What would h()ppen i[ Mrs Gan.dhi is not re-elected Prime Minis-ter ? •.

The Government contradicted it·self over the committee on disputed

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Haryana Chief Minis-ter contradicted the Governmentwhile the Sant contradicted every-body else.

Whatever the truth, there is littledoubt that everyon~ knows by nowthat once an agitation is worked upon any issue, the Government is sureto understand the language of coer-cion. A few months ago in NewDelhi, a Minister of one of the Statesin an inter-State dispute asked thiscorrespondent, with his tongue verymuch in the cheek, "Are you amongthose who think that coercion is theonly language some quarters in Delhiwould understand?" His State wasalready mounting pressure on theCentre to back its case but he wastrying to suggest that the other partywas doing it.

What the Centre did it could havedone gracefully before tension reach-ed the fiashpoint in Amritsar. Har-yana had been carved out by MrNanda to give the Hindi lobby an.;other Chief Minister in the GrandCouncil. There are five Hindi Statesnow. And Haryana is a Hindu Stateas well, the result of a compromisewith the Jan Sangh and Arya Sama-jist communalism.

TrickedThe Centre has not solved the

Punjab tangle though the Sant wastricked into breaking the fast. Thegame now is to play olI the TaraSingh group against the Santo ACEN1;'O-based conspiracy in Punjab,possibly with the CIA behind it, hasbeen abetted by the Centre by per-mitting Master Tara Singh to go toIran just now, ostensibly to coIlect-funds.

But what will be the impact of thePunjab crisis on the army? TheSikhs are three per cent oj India'spopulation but account for 25 to 30per cent of the ranks in the Army.By alienating the Sikhs the Centre isabetting a split in the army. Thelarge number of Sikhs, scattered fromCanada to Hawaii, cannot be expect-ed to speak well of the Government.Everything is zeroing in on the'Centre now.

In the aggregate, Hindu commu-nalism i asserting itself and once itdoes this time, the prospect for theLeft is forbidding. Prof Balraj Ma-dhok warn en IS the other day ofriot.s and bl ......•led if the Puri Achar-ya or Prabnudutt Brahmachari died.He said Pakistan had banned cow

JANUARY 6, 1967

NOW

slaughter and India was going to doit sooner or later but they would ex-pect this to be done gracefuIly hereand now. After Mrs Gandhi had de-claimed on December 21 that the Gov-ernment would not consider any poli-tical demand amidst fasts and otherthreats, the Centre made a majorconcession to communalism by ban-ning cow slaughter in the DelhiUnion Territory and in Goa. Thecow is going to be an election issuein the Hindi-speaking States and theCongress cannot write these areas off.The cow lobby's coup would come-any day now.

If the cow lobby is making a com-munal issue of the cow, so is the Gov-ernment. The Directive Principle inthe Constitution covers all milch,work and draught cattle, which meansit extends to buffaloes. The cowlobby has no solicitude for the poorbuffalo. Nor has the Government.The Congress is badly mixed up incow politics. Mr Kamalanayan Bajajand Seth Govind Das were on thecow platform on November 7. Butthey are Congressmen enough still.There is no barrier between the cowlobby and the Hindi lobby and SethGovind Das's greatest ambition wouldbe to make Mother Cow talk Hindiand no other language when shelearns to speak.

Madras, West Bengal and AndhraPradesh have not faIlen in line withthe Centre on the cow issue. TheCentre has no compunction abqutpointing an accusing finger at theseStates when the cow protectioniststalk to the Government.

So it would not be long before cowprotection takes on a new dimensionto become a communal, language andregional issue roIled into one. Thecow means all this and India is mak-ing its own bomb, too.

HindiThe cow agitation has pushed the

Centre to the point of compromisewith communalism but two or threenon-Hindi States have remainedfirm. The lobby, however, has scor-ed a more striking victory on theHindi issue.

The winter session of Parliamentsaw a constitutional amendment toprovide the status of a national lan-guage for Sindhi hustled through.But when it was asked in the RajyaSabha if the Government intendedto honour the late Mr Nehru's asSur-ance to the non-Hindi-speaking States

about associate status for English, theanswer was that there was no time.We were supposed to believe Mr V.C. Shukla's fable that the draft Billwas ready for this and then came thePakistani aggression. Two PrimeMinisters have changed and an oldassurance has not been kept but theone-million Sindhi votes scattered allover India are a vital factor in mar-ginal seats for the Congress, especial-ly in Bombay city.

The Centre was afraid of amend·ing the Official Languages Act to pro-vide for continued use of English un-der threats from the Hindi lobby. Inthe Lok Sabha to come, this lobbywould be more powerful than it isnow and the amending BiIl wouldnever come. There is no constitu-tional safeguard {or English now anda conflict between the Hindi Centreand some of States would grow afterthe elections.

The very size of a country likeIndia rules out a military dictator-ship or a fascist regime. The LeftEstablishment in New Delhi is nottired of peddling this stale theory.But what has been happening insidethe army? The communal patternnot only persists but is being streng-thened. Eight percent of the com-missioned ranks in the army comefJom Delhi Union Territory whichaccounts for less than half per centof India's population. Until theearly fifties the irrational practiceof reservation for Sikhs in the armycommissions every year continued.It was discovered and ended. But thepattern of representation remainedt,he same. There is a long list ofof Jan Sanghi officers in the middlerung of the army command. Timewas when the vested interests accusedMr Menon of promoting "left" infil-tration in the army. But the JanSanghi infiltration is nobody's busi-ness.

It is as sombre in the civil admin-istration too. Until the RSS was de-clared a political organisation, branchmeetings of the Golwalkar storm-troopers were held inside Govern-ment offices and canteens in theCapital. By virtue of its hold inNew Delhi, the Jan Sangh and theRSS can hold the rest of the countryto ransom by blackmailing the Cen-tre.

Grim, forbidding, cheerless thou-ghts these for the first despatch ofthe New Year.

January I, 1967

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9

intervention. But, through all thestages of the sensational drama, theBritish Government has been consis-tent in one respect, that of refusalto use force against the rebels. OnOctober 29, 19&5, Wilson personallyassured Smith, in reply to a bluntquestion from the latter, that hisGovernment "had rejected militaryintervention" in case of illegal seizureof independence. Thirteen days later,the UDI came. Again, this time, onDecember 6, 1966, just 3 hours afterSmith rejected Wilson's "Tiger" offer,he declared in Parliament that useof force was out of the question.And this, after he had bluntly toldSmith, as the published minutes ofthe "Tiger" talks show, that Britainwould not be prepared 'to be "pushedaround". Fine talk. By now the re-bels know where Wilson stands,though Wilson may not know wherethey stand and, if Rhodesian whites~re not humourless, they shouldhave reserved one cheer for Wilsonwhile cheering their "good OldSmithie" back home.

Second ComplicationThe second factor which compli.

cates the' Rhodesian I?roblem is thetotal political-economIc complex ofthe whole of southern Africa. TheUDI has not simply spilled out, it isa product of the combination of amost shameless racial regime in SouthAfrica and the most backward colo-nial rule of the Portuguese in Mozam-bique and Angola. Yet, these twoprovide sustenance to the rebels.The Portuguese ports serve as clear-ing-house for Rhodesian imports andexports; South Africans have beentransporting 45,000 gallons of oil toRhodesia by road tankers via theBeit bridge and by rail about 100,000gallons daily. (Rand Daily Mail,South Africa, April 18, 1966). Muchhas been made of South Africa's neu-trality in the crisis, but more thanonce South Africa has made it dearthat it would not participate in anytrade boycott or sanctions againstRhodesia. It is true that in support-ing the rebels, the South African re-gime has followed an extremely cau-tious policy, but this caution is onlypart of toe cold caI£;ulations it ismaking. It does not b'other aboutthe moral issues involved and hardlymuch about world opinion which ithas defied often; all that matters toVorster's regim~ is whether the Rho-desians have the capacity and the

question is, 'can Africans win theirindependence without committingfurther violence?' In other words,could the Rhodesian experience bedifferent from those of Kenya andAlgeria? In answering the question,we have to take account of some fac-tors which, in fact, make the Rhode-sian situation unique.

In the first place, Africans in Rho-desia are organizationally so helpless'that they cannot possibly offer anyarmed resistance. It is not becausethe African nationalists are dividedinto rival camps-the ZAPU and theZA U-that has blunted the edge oftheir resistance. For over 30 years,Europeans have kept Africans' inbackward reserves; even the Africansin towns who have been employed inindustries and in European firms, areperiodically sent back to their re-serves to suppress the growth of an .urbanized African labour force. NoAfrican intelligentsia could developunder the educational policies pur-sued by different governments; in1963 out of 7,000 African secondaryschool boys only 81 could get admis-

I sion in Form VI. The stunted growthof Africans and lack of opportunities

. prevented the growth of nationalist; activities until as late as the fifties.. By then, the settler regime, still work-ing under the Imperial Government,had armed itself with so many powersas to frustrate the nationalists fromorganizing politically. Compare thishelplessness of Africans with thestriking power the European mino-rity has accumulated over the years.Today every European adult is wellsupplied with arms; the Rhodesianpolice force consists of 28,500 men,the army 3,400 regular troops and6,000 all-white trained reservists.Backed by these forces, the rebel re-gime is able not only to maintaininternal security against insurgentsbut to offer resistance to three poten-tial sources of attack, Britain, theUN and the OAU.

It is easy (or outsiders to blamethe Rhodesian nationalists for theirapparent listlessness, but let us admitthat they have no material resourcesto work against the white rebels.Further, they cannot possibly orga-'nize armed uprising from across theZambesi; Malawi's Banda would notallow it, and Zambia is not in a posi-tion to give them much help. Underthe situation, the Rhodesians havedone what they have been trained todo-to look to Britain for help and

Rhodesia: TheProblem (I)ANIRUDHA GUPTA

IF the Vietnam war is the mostbrutal expression of America's

new imperialism, Rhodesia is theugliest product of nineteenth-centurycolonialism, The one began at thebeginning of colonial expansion, theoilIer with the process of its with-drawal. And, to both London andWashington, they pose somewhatimilar problems. Because of Vietnam

America's ho~e of bUIlding the 'GreatSociet ' rece es, as unreason-to usea ml er term-gains control overher domestic and foreign policies.Johnson, as a person, may not bemacabre but he is stretching to thelimit the macabre force of America's'military-industrial complex'. InRhodesia, on the other hand, Bri-tain's new image is at stake. A smallracist regime frustrates her attemptto stay at the centre of a multi-racialCommonweall.h, The race factor inboth cases can hardly be hidden-inVietnam Asians are butchered, inRhodesia 4 million Afr' ans live 0:-

s aver, Yet, notwithstanding thep 11 an thropic side of Anglo-American,'civilization', very lit~ seems to haveibeen done to amend the situatlon.fIn Vietnam America clouds her fu-~ture by her present misdeeds, ir lRhodesia, Britain recoils from the t

present under pressure of the excesses! .committed in the past.· t

Yet, in a way, Rhodesia is not a~;unique problem. Wherever, in thelt' I

ex-colonies, sizable settler population~grew up, the process of transfer oilpower became mOst painful. TheAlgerians faced it most acutely and,to a lesser extent, the Kenyans, andboth had to wage bloody warfare toachieve their independence. In Al-geria the people organized them-selves into a mobile army under theFLN, the Kenyans carried on guerillawarfare under the Mau Mau tobreak the back of white settlers. In

hodesia today 'the situation is notaltogether different. A white popula-tion of some 200,000 have ca turedt e countr s 0 It,Ica ower and haveec are a re e IOn a a1l1st t e m-lena vernment. us, techni-fa y, the first act of violence hasalready been committed; now the

SHRIRAM VINYL & CHEMICAL INDUSTRIES, NEW DELHI-'

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shock by' acting as an entrepot fRhodesian exports, and extends iown market to those who cut dowRhodesian imports I In this triaD.gular game South Africa gains, Rho.desia survives and all others, including Britain, would perhaps be thl()sers. Yet, how gullible we are!For the first time Chapter VII of thUN Charter is invoked for mandatorysanctions against Rhodesia withoutand the UK Government has seen toit, making it binding on South Afriand Portugal to observe ·qem. Hofar could downrighti vete goThe Rhodesian proble . essentialJpolitical and mifitary, yet the methochosen to solve it is economic, iwhich sense the UDI loses its individual significance and becomes pof, what an observer says, the soutern African 'battle-line'. Referrinto sanctions, Radio Johannesburcommented, "It becomes clear thathe rest of the world cannot ruiRhodesia without ruining most 0Africa south of the Equator". Uul22, 1966). This is word from thenemy, nevert~less, it is true. IBritain sincere about paying thprice? Are the Africans themselveready? Could the rest of the worlddo it?

NOW

ed to £260 million. Naturally, Bri.tain with a shaky economy and acontracting market. is anxious toavoid a direct confrontation with its'benefactors'. There is also a sinis-ter factor which is hinted at by theEconomist (December 10, 1966),"some of Sputh Africa's financial ope-rations, in insurance, in sales on theLondon Gold market, matter evenmore t.o particular city houses thanthey' do to the country as a whole".It is tht1re that particulars aboutsanctions are decided, not, certainly,at 10 Downing Street. It is no won-der that some British commoditiesbanned last year "in fact, have trickl-ed through to Rhodesia itself viathird parties." The two Africanterritories of the north are, in theirturn, powlerless to make the sanc-tions effective. Malawi is entirelydependent on remittances sent byMalawi workers in Rhodesia; Zambia,despite her attack on British duplicity,has not been able to cut down muchof the £30 million imports she abosorbs from Rhodesia per annum.The small cuts she has been able tomake are, incidentally, filled by SouthAfrican exports. Thus, after a yearof partial sa~ctions imposed sincethe UDI, a definite pattern is deve-loping in the economics of southernAfrica: the Republic absorbs the

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will to defend a system they havecopied from the south. If Salisburyfails too quickly, Pretoria's owntrouble would start; on the otherhand, if it can resist initial pressures,it is in the interest of the latter tosuccour the rebels. Both these as·pects were underlined by SouthAfrica's popular Sunday Time ofNovember 21, 1965:

"Rhodesia's ability to stand up to thestrain imposed by sanctions is governedby the amount of help which she may re-ceive from South Africa. There are greatrisks in not helping Rhodesia as in help-ing her ... the long-term interests of SouthAfrica demand the maintenance of whiterule north of the Limpopo ... We need tosave Rhodesia becaui.e in doing so weshall go a long way to saving ourselves",The third factor, and on this

hinges the effectiveness of sanctions,is the dependence 'of the British eco·nomy on South Africa on one hand,and dependence of Malawi and Zam-bia on their southern neighbour onthe other. These are 'the two weak-est links in the chain of sanctionsto be imp~sed under UN authority.British investments in the Republicof South Africa are said to be worth£1,000 million from which £80 mil-lion of net invisible earnings flowannually. In 1964 alone, total Bri·tish exports to the Republic amount·

J. MOHAN

Cal~utta Diary

The circular railway plan is backin circulation again. This was only

mati cally brighten the chances of theCongress at the polls, has probablyhit the nail on the head. The Con-gress is probably expecting the con·tinued deadlock to heIr them in twoways. There is first o' all the directbenefit to be derived from the subs-tantial inflow of funds to the partycoffers for every private bus allowedto operate in Calcutta-and this, itis generally believed, is the pricethat each private bus operator hasto pay for bringing his bus into thecity-and also the indirect benefitthat it expects to derive by foistingthe blame for the whole affair onthe leftis ts.

A spokesman of the Governmenthas denied that it has any intentionof allowing an increase in fares. Bv~one has seen too many such denialsin the past followed by tame submis-sion to the dictates of the tramwayscompany to be impressed. Equall'yamusing appears to be the Govern-ment's belated concern for the stateof Calcutta roads and its declara-tion that it would force the tramwayscompany to undertake repairs causedby their operations in the city. Thestate of the roads has been a cryingscandal for more years than one caresto remember and every time fareswere pushed up the need for repair-ing them has been a standing argu-ment in favour of a fare increase. Butonce fares were raised, both the com-pany and the Government forgoC' allthey had said about the condition oft,he roads.

Equally farcical sounds the Corpo.ration ultimatum to the tramwayscompany to resume services or elseface cancellation of its licence. Asmany have been quick to point out,the Corporation has hardly any au-thority to execute its threat. As evenan INTUC leader put it. under theagreement which the West BengalGovernment has signed with theTramways Company, there is verylittle that the Government can doagainst' the company as long as theagreement lasts. Even more disturh·ing is the fact that the terms for tak-ing over the company are so onerousand involve such a huge expenditureof .foreign exchange that the companycan rest secure in the knowledge thatfor many decades to come nationali-sat ion will not be a practical possi-bility. '" ,.

of tickets, It IS believed, found theirway into Congress Bhavan and wereused as a kind of bait to rope in in-fluential young men in various loca·lities on the side of the Congressparty. It is this factor that made thesituation even more complicated andcreated an unusual scarcity. Will thisaspect of the beastly business wit-nessed on January I at the Eden Gar-dens be enquired into?

'" '"The deadlock in the tramways con-

tinues, adding to the agony of peoplewho even at the best of times foundthe existing mass transportation faci-lities inadequate. While the wisdomof going on strike at precisely thismoment when the attention of thepeople is fixed on the general elec-tions may be questioned by some;recent developments have made itclear that the onus of the continueddeadlock rests squareJy on the shoul-ders o~ the tramways company andthe West Bengal Government. Thetramways company has made it plainthat is is nut interested in resump-tion of service until its demand fora fare increase is met. It is even be-lieved to have told a deputation ottramwaymen that it is waiting tosee the outcome of the elections.The company has perhaps some rea-sons to believe that while the Gov-ernment may not be able to obligethem just on the eve of the elections,a different attitude might be expectedonce the Congress is returned topower and the elections have beenput out of the way for another fiveyears.

The Government on its part seemsto have taken up the stand that it isnot willing to take any step untilthe workers go back to work.Having tasted blood in the case ofthe State Transport strike the Gov-ernment is' evidently hoping to breakup the tramway workers movementtoo, but the record of the tramwayworkers should be enough to con-vince the Government that suchefforts are bound to end in failure.

One of the leaders of the tramway-men, who recently told the Press thatthe Government was deliberately pro ..longing the strike believing that thediscomfort to the public would au to-

THOUSA DS of people in thiscity were engaged in a despe,

rate, frantic hunt. But the object oftheir search proved even more elu-ive than the notorious Pimpernel·

The hunt was for tickets for the se-coneltest match at the Eden Gardens.Since Calcutta was the only centrein Eastern India where the team wasplaying, people had come from as faraway as Shillong and Andhra to geta chance to see it. But disappoint-ment was writ large on the faces ofmost. With accommodation limitedto some 60,000 seats and the numberof people anxious to see the matchrunning into a few lakhs, this dis-appointment was after all inevitable.But even then there is still a lotmore to it.

Why has Calcutta not got a pro-per stadium yet? A couple of yearsago some sort of a scheme was drawnup for a stadium near the Ellenbo-rough race course and since then ithas been trotted out as a sop to thepublic whenever the demand becameinsistent. But no one knows whenthe project will be taken up, whowill provide the finance and when,if ever, it will be implemented.

Sptculators go into operation everytime there is an important match inCalcutta. For the last few weeks ablackmarket flourished in test matchtickets. Rs. 60-tiekets were sold forRs. 600 and Rs. 45-tickets for any-thing between Rs. 350 and Rs. 500.From the actual owner of the ticketto the buyer a long chain of inter-mediaries operated. person wasoffering Rs. 200 for every ticket andboasting that for each ticket boughthe wOt' make a clean profit ofRs. 75 '/cause he had a party wait-ing sOI1,cwhere who was payingRs. 275 for each ticket. And thatparty was only the next person in thelong chain and would probably sellthe tickets for a profit of at leastRs. 100 per ticket. .

This sort of speculation is, however,nothing unusual. By itsell it wouldhardly have called for comment. Buta new feature of the racket in ticketsthis time was the active interventionof the ruling party in the whole affair-it cornered the tickets for pur-poses of electioneering. Thousands

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JANUARY 6, 1967 11

ever, contacts between these coun·tries have become much closer, thanksto improved communications, traveland advertisements. As a result, ther\is a marked tendency towards inter.nationalisation of the consumptionhabits of the developed countries. Ina word, the famous 'demonstrationeffect' of Duesenberry and Nurksehas come into operation. And thespeed of spreading this effect theworld over is remarkable.

.The consumption pattern of atP' a section of the Indians, for."nple, hardly lags behind that of

lhe Americans, or British, or Frenchby more than .a year. The increas·ing inequality of income distributionat home encourages the growth 01this . international demonstrationeffect. Luxurious consumption pat·terns are easy to adopt, and highlytempting indeed. Our per capitaincome of today is less than even one·third that of the U.S., the UK, Ca-nada, France, Germany, and Den·mark in 1840-1850. We may lag be·hind in income by more than a cen·tury, but in consumption patternswe do not like much delay. Hereinlies the dilemma.

It is easier for a consumer to switchover from bullock cart 'to jet plane;but it is an enormous task for a bul·lock-cart economy to develop into ajet-plane economy. In many a de·veloping country now-a-days, thecommodity composition of consump·tion is changing much faster and be·coming more complex than what thedomestic production system can copewith. Unlike in many developedcountries, consumption and produc.tion there have not evolved together.But a production machine of eigh.teenth-century vintage or so canhardly deliver the goods according toa late twentieth-century menu. Thisgap between the nature of the pro·ductive system and that of the con·sumption pattern in these economiesis increasing. For, international de·monstration effect spreads much tas·ter in consumption than in the sphereof production.

It is a double-edged sword. A poorcountry with the consumption habitsof affluent ones finds it all the moredifficult to save for capital formation,

RANJIT K. SAU

A Growing G~p)

Consumption HabitsReckoned in terms of income per

capita} not only have the relativedifferences among developed and de-veloping countries persisted over thelast century, but the disparity has in-creased; and there is no sign of itsconvergence in the near future. How-

THE developing economies ofAsia, Africa, and Latin Ame-

rica are facing a dilemma today. Itis a dilemma of latecomers. in econo-mic development.

We hear that the days of £Chum-peterian entrepreneurs are gone, atleast in this part of the world. Cen-turies of innovations are bearingfruit elsewhere, and all we need hereis assimilation. Fortunately, we neednot pay the price of initial experi-ments; we are in a ,lucky position toskip certain rungs of the technolo-gical ladder, and right away take ad-vantage of the most up-to-date fruitsof scientific knowle<:fge. To this ex-tent, it is nice to be a latecomer.

India's, for instance, is still a pre-dominantly agricultura.l economy; itsorganised manufacturing industrycontributes but 12 per cent of thenational product. Technology in In-dian agriculture is lagging one or twocenturies behind that of countrieslike the USA, th~ UK, and Japan.Of course, there are isolated instancesof modern plant and. equipment inindustry. But, on the -whrIe, in thescale of technology most 0f the deve-loping countries like India are firbehind. They can still---go a longway on the well-tested path of tech-nology, without making major ex-periments of their own.

But technological transtiormation isa rather slow process. It requiresinflow of capital goods, accumulationof know-how, and above all, continu-ous research to adapt the techniquesto a new environment. Such a trans-

.formation may also be difficult. For,it requires complementary domesticresources; capital formation itself isthe vehicle of technical progress.Finally, in some cases it may not beeven economically justifiable; a tech-

.nique well-suited in labour-shortcountries may fail the test of simpleeconomics in a labour-surplus one.

to be exp€cted. In view of the near·ness of the elections the State Gov-ernment and the Central Govern-ment, both led by the same politicalparty, had 00 show that they weredoing their best to tackle the trans·port problems of this city. A closerlook at the latest move, however,shows that it is nothing more ambi·tious than a proposal to set up an·other committee to examine the wholequestion. Some months ago I hadtried to point out in, these columnsthat since the inception of thisscheme some dozens of committee~had been formed under Governmentor semi-Government auspkes and reoports running into reams were avail·able on the subject. In view of thisone cannot but feel that the latestproposal is little more than anotherelection stunt meant to soothe thefeelings of those whose patience isalmost at an end after years of hop-ing that some attempt would hemade to ease the transport crisis.This feeling is only strengthenedwhen one finds that together with thecircular railway plan rosy prospectsof building a tube railway or a modi-fied version of it are being held upbefore the people. Only a few monthsago it had been categorically declar-ed by the State Government that con.sidering the heavy costs involved, atube railway would not be a practi.cal proposition for quite some timeto come.

One should not be surprised itmany more such plans and schemesare brought out from dusty shelvesand dangled before the people onlyto be carefully thrust back into theiroriginal pigeon-holes the mom en t theelections are over.

Business Manager

Now IS available fromBenoy Kumar MallickC/o Mallick LibraryBarabazar,Midnapore.

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

OA 66/F4

HELP; THEM FIGHT THE DROUGHT

I

The con.tributions most welcome are foodgrains, tinned vegetables,milk powder, biscuits, multi-vitamin tablets, medicines, clothesand blankets. These may be sent to Bihar Relief Committee,Patna, Uttar Pradesh Relief Committee, lucknow, local branch ofthe Citizens Councilor Red Cross Society or to Central ReliefCommittee) New Delhi.

l-li' ,'ijJ

• RAILWAY FREIGHT

Gifts to specified con-signees of medicines,vitamin tablets, foodarticles, clothing andblankets are carriedfree of charge by goodstrain or by passengertrain.

• CHEQUESmay .please bemade out in favourof Prime Minister'sDrought ReliefFund.

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• INCOME TAX

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Certain exemptions aremade under the In-come-tax Act for cashcontributions on pro-duction of receipts as inthe case of the National I

Defence Fund.

Gifts from abroad forrelief in scarcity areasare exempted fromCustoms Out)'.

1 '1,1. TO THOSE WHO DONATE TO

PRIME MINISTER'S DROUGHT RELIEF FUND~

• POSTAL

,, '

• ENTERTAINMENT TAX

Those arranging benefitshows in aid of the Re-lief Furx:!may approachthe State Governmentsconcerned for permis-sion an9 exemptionfro m EntertainmentTax.

Remittances are exem-pted from payment ofMoney O~der commis-sion and postal, andregistration charges.

(/ '(..~ SPECIA[\_~ ...CONCESSIONS

I

of atms, forthat ofFrenchincreas-'ibutionwth ofstrationDn pat-

highlycapita

'en one-JK, Ca-i Den-lag be-

l a cen-latternsHerein

I switchplane;

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, a de-'5, thensump-md be-hat them copt;.velopedproduc-1gether.If eigh-;0 canding to. Thisle pro-le con-nomiesnal de-lch tas-sphere

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i, 1967

,e coun-I thanks" travelIt, thereIs inter-Imptionries. InstrationNurkse

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not be any effort to split hairs abouinterpretations of what Mr HukamSingh said pr meant when he ad·dressed the congregation at the Gold·en Temple. Neither Chandigarhnor the nominal title to the Bhakrahydro-electric project are such issuesas required the elaborate etisis thaiwas worked up nor the kind of breath.less last-minute drama that was play.ed by the parties concerned. No-body will gain in prestige or repu.tation for statesmanship by pretend.ing that arbitration by the PrimeMinister will lead to anything bulhanding -Chandigarh over to Punjab.The unburnt Sant can have the sa·tisfaction that he can now ask forthe communal Sikh vote with greaterself-confidence than before. Thepaper doubts if the Sant and his fol·lowers were prepared to go throughwith the "illop'ical gamble" they hadstarted, fr ~ way they jumped althe first oppurtunity that was offeredto get out of the literally burningsituation would suggest that neitherSant Fateh Singh nor the six self.immolators were truly prepared tocarry out their threat.

Other papers have spared the Gov·ernment, for they think the climb-down has been on the part of theSant alone. The Statesman has cometo the conclusion that the Akalis havedemonstrated that incendiary resolu'.tions do not pay, and that it is muchbet~er to concede sanity in others andconvert them patiently with soundarguments if they have any.. Theymay also have learnt that India istired of disruption. The paper thinksthat the Sant and the "devious poli-ticians" around him have gained no-thing out of the perilous game ofbrinkmanship they have played. Thefanfare of vows of immolation, themelodrama of inflammatory prepara·tions, the repetition of some "insane"slogans, all this has brought the Sanland his "junta" no more than whatthey could have had without any ofthis time-consuming fuss, withoutexposing Punjab-and India-to mo-ments of fearful anxiety or themselvesto the taunt, which their politicalopponents will surely hurl at them,that they did not have the courageto carry out their threats. The pa-per's interpretation of the compro-mise formula is that virtually every·thing has been left to Mrs Gandhi'arbitration. This is not a burdenwhich she would have shirked if SanFateh Singh had shown his prefer.

themselves mistaken. Apart fromdiverse interpretations of certain im-portant points in the compromise.formula which are sure to give ristto bitterness and mutual recrimina·tions, Sant Fateh Singh will be accus·ed by his political rivals .and even bysome of his own followers of havingsaved his life at the cost of honour.Mrs Indira Gandhi may be in evendeeper difficulties. Few in Punjaband Haryana are going to believethat it was the Sant's faith in herEi:rm-mindedness which promptedhim to accept her arbitration. Tomost people an assurance that Chan·dig-arh would soon be transferred toPunjab appears implicit-in the arbi-tration offer. The arbitration maythus 'eem a "face-saving device notfor the Sant but for the Government".The latest confrontation has solvednothing. Fasts and threats of self·immolation may continue to be wea-pons of considerable potency in In-dian politics.

Patriot is another paper to holdlike views. It says that the grimstance of granife strength and ges-tures of unalterable resolve adoptedby the Prime Minister and othershave turned out to be nothing morethan the routine first act in a pro-gramme of vacillation which has be·come hahitual to the Union Govern-ment. Belatedly it has been discov-ered that Mr Chavan's statement of8 November in Parliament carriedwithin it all the latitude necessary forthis "blundering climb-down aftermuch bombast about no concessionsunder threats". The paper hopesthe -lesson will now at least be learntthat only an intrinsically strong Gov-ernment can afford to talk big inmatters like this; and there should

NOW

much to the international demonstra-tion effect on consumption pattern.

The time has come in India to callfor a halt to this growing gap: Is itpossible to allow the internationaldemonstration effect only on produc-tion technolog:y., and not on the con·sumption pattern? It is. Japan did it.

Truce Of Amr.itsarCOMMENTATOR

IT is futile! now to speculate onwh.at would have been the gene·

ral reaction of ,newspapers if eventsat Amritsar had taken a differentturn. But from what has appearedafter the breaking of the fast by tJ'l.e-Sant it seems that he has not manyfriends in the Press. Not one paperhas supported the means he adopted,though on the end most papers ha!,epreferred to reserve verdict. Opinionis divided on whether the compro-mise formula has conceded the Santhis demands, but it is unanimousthat he could have got al}. thesewithout throwing the country in astate of tension for days. The Gov-ernment has come off rather rightly,and most papers have conceded thatits stand conformed with the newimage of firmness in which the Gov-ernment is trying to cast itself.

One of the few papers to be criti-cal of both is The Hindustan Tt'meswhich maintains that despite itsearlier stubborn refusal, the Govern-ment has, for all practical purposes,reopened the issue. If it has notviolated its earlier pledge the adhe-rence must be purely technical, for itis obvious that the request of the.Chief Ministers of Punj'ab and Har-yana was "hurriedly contrived undera directive from the Centre". OnSunday evening the Chief Ministershad declined to entertain the Sant'sterritorial demands, but curiously, inlsss than twentyfour hours they suf-fered a change of mind and hasten-ed to submit the issue to arbitration.The paper cautions that should theGovernment and Sant Fateh Singhthink that having found the compro-mise formula and averted the immo·lations their political troubles arebehind them, they will soon find

The Pren

This in turn reduces its ability tomake use of modern technology.

Furthermore, the patent features ofa poor economy like India, namely,lack of people's eagerness to work onthe agricultural field, migration tocities, even the balance of papnent!>disequilibrium, and so forth owe

, RELEASED 8Y:

PUBLICITY SOCIETY OF INDIA LTD.CALcun A • BOMBAY • MADRAS • DELI-U • LUCI(NOW

/

Our a~tions today will reflect on the future of ourcountry and the happinessof those near and dearto us...only we can ~nsure a happy smiling futur6for the India of tomorrow by striving, as we havenever done before, in every field of activity inwhich we are engaged.

~

HELP TO KEEP HIM SMILING ALWAYS ...

-

boutlkam: ad-:;'old-igarhlakraissuesthat

'eath-play-No-

repu-:tend-?rime~ butmjab.le sa-k forreater

Theis fol-roughy hadled at)fferedIrlllngleither<. self-ed to

e Gov-climb-)f the5 comeis hav~resolu-: much:rs andsoundThey

ldia isthinks

IS poli-led no-me ofd. Them, the.repara-. "msaneh.e Santn whatany of

without-to mo-:mselves:>olitical't them,couragerhe pa-compro-y every-:;'andhi'sburden

1 if Santi prefer.

6, 1967

JANUARY 6, I

I

F(

anyhasmenoutrmovoperthetllentheunwtobod'hownl01

hadpoliundis dCorvielBmsupultiPri

"'secla 1Hihelio'th~fasabosalm,co:onofindi'es!msavc

ister on Chandigarh and on theBhakra complex is typical of twothings-of their belated politicalawareness and of their sense of fair-mindedness. Mrs Gandhi can al·ways be trusted to be fair in her judg-ment and dealings, however, politicalthese might be. All this seems likea fairy tale. The end is beautiful.But all of us must see that it is realand that it lasts.

Both Hindusthan Standard andAmrita Bazar Patriha are so glad thata crisis had been averted that theyhave refrained from any critical exa·mination of the proposals. The for·mer says that it is enough that neitherthe Sant nor the Government feelsthat it has yielded to coercion andboth are prepared to give the com·promise proposals a fair trial. Boththe Prime Minister and the proposedcommission are being called upon toundertake a job that is admittedlydifficc 3ut with goodwill and ajudicial ~pproach it will not be im-possible to find a practical solutionthat will be acceptable to all parties.Amrita Bazar Patriha is all praise forthe Government's stand which is firminsofar as determination not to sub-mit to coercion, to political fasts andself-immolations goes; but it is at thesame time a flexible stand insofar asthe Government is prepared to accept

N''''''T''A'WA ••CULTURALWIlKLl'

;

BelatedWelcoming the Sant's decision to

end the "arbitrary" fast The IndianExpress says had the Sant and his ad-visers earlier decided to settle thepoints at issue in the rational man-ner they now have, the "tinseldrama" enacted in the holy precinctsof the Golden Temple at Amritsarneed never have occurred. Neitherthe Sant nor his advisers have cover·ed themselves with any especial glory.By acting in the manner they didthey have marred the great tradi-tions of Sikhism. That they shouldaccept arbitration by the Prime Min-

NOW

differences over the interpretation ofthe formula degenerate into one morebitter controversy. If the Akali lea-ders are willing to abide by MrsGandhi's verdict on the main issuesof the future of Chandigarh and theadministration of the Bhakra pro-ject, they cannot mistrust her judg-ment in regard to minor border ad-justments. So far as the Governmentis concerned it makes little differ-ence to it whether the other boun-dary disputes are settled by the PrimeMinister' or left to a cor::tliission, foreven if Mrs Gandhi takes the directresponsibility for settling all thesedisEutes she would have to d~pendon the advice of experts.

l\r(:)~ listens, tninks and speaks, and dialogueamong readers stirs into life. It may be Vietnamor Vatican, 'Sadachar' or DIR, but the treatment inl\R:)~ is the same ---- sharp, searching,

incisive, perhaps often'irritating, when youdissent and denounce~ But that is being intelle-ctually alive, and the wavelength does not change.It is the shared admiration for an adult view ofthe world.

People read l\rON -for an adult view of the world.

16

ence for it earlier; it differs littlefrom what she had offered at the start,a mutually acceptable decision to betaken afer consultations. If not forthe Sant's and the Akali DaI's poli-tics, for Punjab's and country's somegood may yet come out of this pieceof folly. Legitimate methods ofsettling disputes have had the chanceof taking a sJand and winning againstcoercive and irresponsible tactics.

The Times of Indz'a feels relievedthat good sense has prevailed and theAkali leaders have been persuadedto abandon the fiery ordeal they hadplanned for themselves. The Sant'sfollowers will hail the compromiseunder which the final decision re-garding the future of Chandigarhand the administration of the Bhakraproject has been left to the PrimeMinister as a moral victory while hisdetractors will dub it as a defeat. Itis neither one nor the other. It isa belated recognition on the part ofthe Akali leaders of the dangerousfutility of the course on which theyhad embarked. If all that the Santand his followers wanted was per-sonal arbitration by Mrs Gandhithey could have had it much earlier.They have gained little by forcingthe country to live through nine daysof harrowing anxiety. It would bemost unseemly, the paper says, if

PITAMBAR GUIN

Award Or Affront ?

17

to do with my present despair. Andyet, se~U1ingly, there were aspects o[that Vlgyan Bhavan [unction whichcould justifiably warrant a very dif-ferent reaction. Wasn't it, for ins-tance, the first time that a writerwas honoured not only on an all-l}ldia basis, and by Indians them-selves, but, in recognition of his ser-vices, given a cash award, the amountof which should be considered hugenot merely for India, one of thepoorest countries, but anywhere inthe world? That amount being stillsomewhat less than the Nobel Prizemoney, it won't be surprising if anupward revision of it becomes a rea-lity in near future, since we are toldthat it is an annual award and that'work in connection with the secondaward has progressed to a stage whenfinal decision can be expected withinthe next couple of months or so.'Meanwhile, of course, the country'so.verall economic position will con-tmue to worsen, but should thatmatter when we still have and willcontinue to have some o[ the richestmen in the world and when, as inKashmir, what is at stake here is noless a thing than national prestige?Referring to the prize money, there-fore, the J nanpith authorities feeljustified to declare: 'The amount ofthe prize has to be substantial inkeeping with the international stan-dards and national prestige'.

PrestigeApart from the historical fact that

clamouring for prestige, nationallyor individually, comes only at thosemoments when that prestige has notonly .been threat~ned but seriouslyquestIOned or signs of it have dis-appeared, the Jnanpith authoritieswere deceiving no one by that refer-enc~ ~o nati.onal prestige. If thenatIOn s prestige was so much theconcern of the Sahu Jain family, whohave instituted this award and arefounders of the Jnanpith, their life-lo~g action, some mischievous peoplemight argue, would have taken acompletely different course. No,what the Jnanpith- means is its ownprestige, which must have beenobvious to anyone attending thatVigyan Bhavan [unction and, espe-

CYNICISM is a virtue practisedby the dispassionate, but 'dis-

passion', if at all it can be so called,is hardly a virtue which most mortalspractise. - Being an insignificant mor-tal and, therefore, not a cynic, I feltcoming out the other day from theVigyan Bhavan function at NewDelhi, organised by the Bharati yaJnanpith in honour of the 65-year-old Malayalam poet, Mr G. Sankan~Kurup.

If such be the boost that the causeof Indian literature so badly needed,which at least is the contention ofthis Rs. 1 lakh literary award, theprospects of Indian literature shouldbe anything but encouraging.

Lest an unintended impression becreated, I must hasten to add thatI have nothing whatsoever againstKurup, who I think is a good oldIndian in quite a good old sense ofthe term and, unquestionably, alsoa very devoted poet. It is unthink-able that I or anybody should meanany disrespect to him. However, itwould be equally hypocritical on mypart not to admit that from the littleI know of his writings, I do not con-sider them great or relevant in anyappreciable way to the times we livein. It leaves me, therefore, cold toread in the citation of award on himthat 'There is in these poems a testi-mony to the Indian Adwait think-ing, finding expression here notthrough the poet's acceptance of anytraditional form of mysticism but asa genuine experience of the Self seenreflected in the myriad moods ofNature; and because of this ShriKur~p's romantic lyricism also hasovertones of spiritual and superbmoral stance'. But that is my per-sonal opinion of the man as a wri-ter, which is neither here nor thereand which I am not asking othersto share. Of course, it does seem tome odd to claim, as the Jnanpithhas done, that Otakkuzhal (meaning'the flute'), the award winning poetrycollection by Kurup, is the bestcreative writing produced in thewhole of India between 1920 and1958. But there again, literaryawards, i~ ~ny country, are alwayscon troverslal.

No, Kurup, frankly, has nothing

For NOW readers in Western Indiamay contact

S.D.CHANDAVARKAR

10, Kanara HouseMogal Lane, Mahim

Bombay-16.

Now is available from

~fr S. P. Chatterjee,Steel Market,Statesman Office,Durgapur.

any solution of the dispute whichhas the imprimatur of the Govern-ments o[ Punjab and Haryana. Butoutright rejection of all informalmoves to resolve the tangle, in co-operation with the parties concernedthe Akali leaders have been puttingthemselves in the wrong and givingthe impression that they are whollyunwilling to submit their demandsto examination by any impartialbody. Within twenty-four hourshowever the paper changed its opi-nion and conceded that the Akalishad gained a major point; a delicatepolitical issue has been re-openedunder pressure, and before the inkis dry on the report of the BoundaryCommission, Delhi has agreed to re-view its major recommendations.Boundary commissions would besuperfluous if boundary disputes areultimately to be dealt with by thePrime Minister at a political level.

What the attitude of at least asection of Sikhs is becomes clear froma letter o[ Khushwant Singh in TheHindustan Times. Claiming thathe is echoing the sentiments of mil-lions of Sikhs Khushwant Singh saysthat Sant Fateh Singh's announcedfast unto death and self-immolationabandoned when a "face-saving live-saving" formula was presented hasmade laughing stock of the entirecommunity. The Akalis have notonly desecrated the sacred precinctsof the Akal Takht by converting itinto an unused crematorium but alsodisgraced the hallowed traditionsestablished by a long line of Sikhmartyrs by swearing oaths on thesacred Granth and not fulfilling theirvows.

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(Incorporated in England.The liability of members is limited.)

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Liquors.Pharmaceuticals.Ceramics andSanltaryware.Fine ohemlcals.Food colours.Consumer Goods(Packaged).Shipping andTrilnsport.

Sugar.GarbonlC-Acid gas.Industrial Alcohol.Heavy chemicals.Fertilisers.Fungicides andInsecticides.Engineering.Confectionery.

great honour' Ralldor Laxness wir'regret profoundly heavy workinschedule and many duties prevent mefrom travelling to India on great oc,casion .. :

The president wrote even to Jean.Paul Sartre and to which, what iequally if not more surprising, Sar·tre replied, saying: 'I thank you verymuch for your kind invitation. It iswith pleasure that I would have in.augurated the ceremony in honour 01the great poet G. Sankara Kurup.Unfortunately, my programme for thecoming months is already too heavy..and I fear that it would not be pos-sible for me to visit ;ndia. Please be·lieve that I regret it: Sartre, whojust the other day refused the NobelPrize on a matter of principle and atthe moment is preparing himself toact as a member of the internationaljury trying America's war crimes inVietnam, would have had a heartattack if only he knew for whichcause he was replying.

Lastly, the letter by Bertrand Rus-sell, on the letterhead of BertrandRussell Peace Foundation: 'Thankyou very much for your letter. I ap-preciate your invitation but regret Iam not able to visit India at this time,I am. sending by separate post foryour mterest my recent "Appeal tothe American Concience". Yours sin.cerely, Bertrand Russell:

It would be interesting to specu·late on what the president thoughtof ~oing ,with that appeal when shereceIved It.

NOW is sold atBook MagBus-standB.S.R.T.C.Patna-l

NOW

make disparaging remarks about thesource of that money? Our Govern-ment has always been over-anxious tohelp these people, and we are, there-fore, happy to know from the presi-dent of Jnanpitb. that 'the Govern-ment of India has exempted theprize-money from income-tax and hasthus showed its consideration andres'pect for Indian literatures. Bhara-tiya Jnanpith is grateful for this co-operation'. If what some people sayabout the source of the prize-moneyis not a false allegation, it would bedifficult to find a better example ofthat much used proverb: killing twobirds with one stone.

The write-up on the Jnanpithpresident in the brochure (this do-cument is highly recommended to alllovers of absurd literature, and mayquite conceivably inspire lbee andcompany witl! new ideas for theirfuture plays, if only they come toknow about it) and see what it says.The president, we are told, 'studiedin institutions pulsating' with na-tional and patriotic fervour, and hadher personality shaped in idealisticsurrou~ding. She is not only themain inspiration behind literary,artistic and educational activities be-ing carried under the auspices of theSahu-Jain organization, but herselflends a helping hand in a practicalway wherever needed'. After thisvivid description, it would be super-fluous (and even in bad taste, parti.cularly because it concerns a mem-ber of the fair sex) to ask for details,such as what exactly she studied inwhich institutions precisely. Simi-larly, the secretary is a 'writer, Edi-tor and essayist of a style all his own'.The brochure is full of such reveal-ing information about the Jnanpithpersonali ties.

MessagesBy far the most revealing, however,

is its reproduction of a few letters,all by Nobel laureates, if you please,~ho, obviously, were invited to pre-SIde over the award ceremony. Sincenone of them cared to come, DrSampurnanand (and why not? Ishe any the less important?) had totake upon himself that responsibi.lity. While politely declining for'personal reasons' the 'generous invi-tation', Lagarkvist writes, 'I am surethat the· activities of the Jnanpith In.stitute will prove to be of the great-est value for Indian literature -andcultural life in general.: 'Thanking

NOW can be had atNews CornerWazidmanzilWater Works RoadSilchar,Assam

-

cially, from a brochure, profuselyillustrated and printed on art paper,brought out on the occasion. Kurup,included (as if quite accidentally) inthe galaxy on the Vigyan Bhavandais, glowed there like a shy firefly,uncertain of his glory, and was madeto look like a cog on the wheel which,whatever the superficial signs to thecontrary, was nothing but a giganticadvertisement (a tamasha, a friendremarked) for the Jnanpith. Thosethat thundered and dominated thescene were, ironically, not the pas-sionate lovers of literature or ofKurup's poetry-nor even Kuruphimself, however grateful (and he IS

grateful, understandably; he startedhis life as a poor school teacher) he.might have been for the cheque forone lakh rupees-but the womanpresident ana the secretary of theJnanpith, and, above all, the Jnan-pith banner.

And that is the crux of the matter.the essential reason for my despair.It is always distressing to find peo-ple, who should have no businesswith anything even remotely relatedto culture, taking all of a sudden toliterature or art, determined to in-fluence its taste or trends. Thoughin reality they are unlikely to influ-ence anything of the kind, the veryfact of their coming into this fieldshould be enough of an affront.Building a few dharamshalas andsimilar charitable institutions, whichpeople of this class have so long con-sidered sufficient for expiating theirsins and a sure key for them to enterheaven, will now have to- be supple-mented with efforts to promote cul-ture (in this specific case, 'to en-courage original writing in Indianlangu~ges'), since some of their in-numerable advisers must have toldthem that it is not possible these daysto buy prestige without spending onculture.

So, fortified perhaps by a similaradvice, the Jnanpith also spends.And, after all, what is a lakh of ru-pees to them, especially when thereare enough people of evil tongue to

18 JANUARY '6, 1967

Laxness wires~avy workinges prevent me1 on great oc·

even to Jean.lich, what islrprising, Sar·lank you veryritation. It isould have in·, in honour ofnkara Kuru}>.ramme for theldy too heavyd not be pos·ia. Please be·

Sartre, whosed the Nobelinciple and atng himself to

internationalwar crimes inhad a heartw for which

Bertrand Rus·of Bertrand

tion: 'Thank: letter. lap.1 but regret Iia at this time.lrate post forl~, "Appeal .to~. Yours sm·1.'ing to specu-ident thoughtleal when she

r LTD.:Iand.s limited.}

re.1aeeutlcals.lies andryware.hemlcals.:olours.mer GoodSaged).ng and)ort.

BiswaroopaBy A DRAMA CRITIC

THE amateur theatre movement inBengal is noted for its multi-

~\icityof techniques and diversity ofthemes. The commercial theatretompanies, on the other hand, aresingularlyunited-if they scorn any-thing it is diversity. Once a parti-cular fashion is set up by one com-panythe others immediately imitate.Yearsback, for example. debility, de-crepitude and deformity were thesubjectof plays in the commercialtheatrehouses; threatre-lovers will re-member the simultaneous run ofSh)'amali, Ulha and Erao Manush.Today it is politics and the Biswa-roopaTheatre-to be 'in the move-ment'-has taken up a Jlolitical playfor its latest production. The playis supposed to have the refugee pro-blemat its centre and eradication ofcorruption in the government as itsmotto. But in actuality. it has some.lusciousplums df political exhorta-tion, Rood enough for the politicalJackHomers.

Jaga has as its source a fiction(fribarna) by Banaphoo1. The ori-~nal, because of its non-dramaticfictionalnature, however, does notbear dramatization; even if it does,Rasbehari Sarkar is not exactly themanto achieve this formal metamor-phosis. Hence the tedious solilo-quies,insipid report.s, irrelevant com-mentaries and brief scenes. Thescenesare at times so short that thetensiondoes not mou n t at all: thesoliloquiesdo not evolve out of dra-matic contexts, they simply act aslinks to keep the story goin~; thecommentaries are seldom identifiedith the action of the play, they

~angloosely, giving an impression of

iomething foreign and grafted. Onmore than one occasion, Mr Sarkar,feels the necessity of brac:ng upthings so that the meal does not getcold. In order to mend the drama-tic lapses, 'he introduces well-knownjokes about family planning, tries tocreate fun out of the impotence of aman with four wives, indulges in in-numerable references to Bapuji, theFather of the Nation, Panditji andthe corruptibility of the present rul-ers, and, to crown all, arranges {ora dance programme in which SumitaSanyal shakes, Srabani Bose twists,and J ayashri Sen in the name of aslave-dance actually entertains us withnothing less than a belly dance. Butunfortunately these spicy semi-humo-rous, semi-political and semi-sexualelements remain alien to the text andthe whole attempt amounts to muchado about nothing.

In spite of the horrid dramatiza-tion a number of exotic, queer cha-racters retain their original charms.One Doctor Sutham Mukherjee is adarling dodo who can wait for hoursin a dense forest to watch a porcu-pine, spend sleepless nights for his.cow, speak to his dogs incessantly ina private language (as Moll and the'bunch of crooks do in The RoaringGirl of Dekker and Middleton), andcan gladly marry a raped and muti-lated woman. Doctor Ghosal, drawnsomewhat in Shakespearean lines, isanother eminently lovable character,reminiscent of Barnadine for hisbeautiful beastliness. Shamuk-Bel-lona and Venus compounded in onewoman-is a charming character. Un-fortunately most of the players-withthe single exception of Satya Baner-jee-fail to exploit the theatrical po-tentialities of these characters. SatyaBanerjee, too, does not do anythingoriginal, he acts e{actly in the con-ventional manner. But Mr Banerjeeknows the tricks and gimmicks ofconventional acting. as much as agood Christian knows his Bible. Butwhat could a man do single-handedin the midst of so much tame act-ing?

Yet the mischief made by RasbehariSarkar, the dramatizer, in collabora-tion with a company of glamorousbut tame actors, is somewhat compen-sated for bv the director RasbehariSarkar. A comparatively new ent.rantin the field, Mr Sarkar, has pickedup the theatrical ways in quite ashort time; he is very confident aboutall the technical matters of the thea-

tre. Of course, his much advertisedtheatr-escope-supposed to be uniqueof its kind-is a cock-a-Ioopy non·sense; one need not take it serious·ly. Nevertheless, the uses of cyelora.mic backdrop, projection of imagesand shadows, zonal lighting with in-termittent overlapping and manyother theatrical devices, are confi-dent. At times Mr Sarkar presentsgenuine coup de theatre by breakingdown the barrier bet.ween the stageand the auditorium. Sometimes hewould even create symbolic overtonesby the thoughtful choice and arrange-ment of the stage-props. Indeed MrSarkar at moments can create bril-liant theatre. If only one could suckthe theatrical sugar from the pseudo.political pill and keep back the pillitself on the plate I

EDUCATION IN INDIABy K. S. Vakil and S. NatarajanAllied Publishers. Rs. 14.00

HOW does one write about edu-cation in India. both 'educa.

tion' and 'India' being such vaguewords? The authors of this text-book are not" however, aware of anysuch unsettling questions. With thehelp of the reports of various educa·tional commissions, starting- from theIndian Education Commission (1882)and ending with the Secondary Edu·cation Commission (1952), they haveturned out this "popular textbookof absorbing interest", The aut.horsare self-effacing; they consider it un·gentlemanly to comment on, analyseor even summarise, the reports. In-stead they quote from the memoran-dum on technical education in India(]886.l904, pp. ]-3) to review the 11is-tory of education in India up to1882; from the Government of IT\"dia Resolution (1904) to review t

Indian Education Commission; fromthe Hartog Committee report to com.ment on educational changes intro-duced through t.he Montague Chelms-ford Reforms; and so onwards. Un-derstandably, there are no commentson the Secondary Education Com-mission (1952);- because the authorshad to publish the book before thereport of the Kothari Commissionwas out. Not that education in verymodern India has been completelyignored. The authors have suppliedthese informative details: Mn Vijay-lakshmi 'Pandit declared at the Cal.cutta University Convocation in theyear 1962 that English had becomethe window to the world ... the Edu-cational Administration in the Re-public o[ India is under a separateMinistry of Education in the CentralGovernment, with headquarters atNew Delhi .... Games should be play-ed during, not after, school hours ...Text-books on hygiene should dealwith Indian conditions.

There being no commision orthings like Macaulay's Minute QrWood's Despatch about ancient In-dia, the authors have to summarilydispense with the ancient period.Within the span of a dozen of pagesliberally strewn with quotations fromthe Upanishads, the education of In.dia has been 'mapped out' (a petphrase of the authors) with these sig-nificant details " .... Home educationcontinued till the child reached theage of 8, 11 or 12, according as it be·longed to the Brahman, Kshatriya orVaishya caste"; "Brahmacharis worecloth of hemp, flax or wool, carrieda staff and deerskin and tied a girdleround their waist". (sic). From thesedetails, the authors conclude: "Thusit will appear that the ultimate aimof education was emancipation-ledfrom unreality to reality, from dark·ness to light, [rom death to immorta-lity" .

The Mohammedan period has beencovered in ten pages with long quotesfrom Keay on Akbar's views on edu·cation and Aurangzeb's views on hisown education.

After going through this bookwhich is intended for students andteachers o~ teachers' training col-leges, one IS not sure about who isresponsible for spelling (celebacy,ceremoney, ado-Iescence, chronical),transliteration (Bhagvadgita, Yajn.yavalkya, Navadeep, Benaras, HarshCharita), construction (Worshin thymother as a God) , punctuation (What

20

NOW

brings, you here?), proof-reading(Givel -iberally, on the othcrhand,distinctionsby, wholelearned). Theseinstances occur within the first six-teen pages o[ the book, which wasthrice revised, as the publishers claim.One cannot but agree, [or once, withthe Governmeg.t. The study groupof the Home Ministry concluded twomonths ago that the recent studentunrest was due to bad books, andbad teachers. Mr K. S. Vakil is 'anF:R.G.S. and M.R.S.T. and S. Nata.rajan is a vice-president of W.C.O.T.P. What are these?

NITYAPRIYA GHOSH

Letters

D~sunity Over Vietnam

Deeds are more eloquent thanwords. To talk of unity as Revision-ist does (December 23) is no indica-tion that one is desirous of, or seriousabout. unity. When I hear the screamfor unity from the Soviet Union andits followers, I am irresistibly remind.ed of the famous letter Engels wroteto Bebel on June 20, 1873, on unity.In it, inter-alia, he said, "One mustnot allow oneself to be misled by the-cry for 'Unity'. Those who havethis word most often on their lipsare those who sow the most dissen-sion ... the greatest sectarians and thebiggest brawlers and rogues are atcertain moments the loudest shoutersfor Unity", adding, "Nobody in ourlife and time has given us more trou-ble and been more treacherous thanthe unity shouters." If one cares tocompare the professions and practiceof the Soviet Union, such as with·drawal of Soviet technicians fromChina, describing the Gulf of Tonkinincident as a provocation by China(the local admirer of the SovietUnion, weekly Kalantar, then head-lined the news as 1ff'l'fi'1~ l£lf"nlnr~r.{~ ~c~tD;{1-Chinese provocationin South-East Asia), the partial TestBan Treaty, to mention a few, one willrealise how perfectly the descriptionby Engels fits the present.day leadersof the Soviet Communist Party. Aboveall, can China make a united front toretain America in South Vietnam byorganising a Tashkent type pact asmooted by the Soviet Press? In viewof the above, was it a crime for China

to distrust the Soviet leaders?China, paradoxical though itseem, sincerely wants unity withSoviet Union and told her so, pvided-and this is very importantthe Soviet Union gives up her copany with U.S. imperialism and dnot treat friends as enemies aenemies as friends. In her me sato the recent 23rd Congress of tSoviet Communist Party, althounot participating in it, China assurher Soviet brothers without any equvocation that 650 million Chinwould stand solidly behind theshould the Soviet Union once decito confront imperialism. But thatyet a far cry. Meanwhile, the strugle against Soviet opportunism mugo on. Undoubtedly this strugglethe main question immediately cofronting progressives and revolutiaries all the world over. As Lensaid 'A struggle against imp,!rialithat is not linked up with struggagainst opportunism is an idle phraor a fraud'. '

It seems the Soviet Union has chen a "more honourable course" iachieving and maintaining worlpeace-peaceful co-existence withmost brutal imperialism in humhistory-while whipping up the'anti-China campaign. The USA athe Soviet tJ nion, it seems, mucome to terms so that Chinese nue!installations may be bombed wiimpunity.

How can a socialist country orrevolutionary party in a capitalicountry genuinely help the Vinamese people? Material help .terms of weapons, war material afood is important and it has beenported (The Economist, Decemberthat China has been supplying 70of all the military aid to Hanagainst 20% from Russia and 10from East Europe. The Soviet Unimay increase her share of militarysistance. But what is far more imptant is ideological commitment. Tstark realisation is being forced onprogressive people that the Vietnampeople are fighting the battle forof us; but what one detects in tSoviet attitude is the distant magnimity of a powerful aid-giyicountry.

That the Soviet Union is reitant to involve herself in the Vietmese struggle and directly conf

JA UARY 6, I

the :\o[ her 0tory prodefeatingpeacefultel', an arialism J

is more,helps thjconquestto the,mese perican delaxationcoUl-agestheir arAsia anitheir w~Jy, thetransiti(nationaary rno,particuAmericiricanforce iRussia':,\merictargetsnam."iye if

Aha

ourand h;occasi<lat.ionmentehaveAmeri\entil;in th"The)mentno seouterof Vi\enge

I dtirelyo[ thdispuhavethe \cd t)brut(presscontiragesdeatIed Ii

m-oes.ndagethe19hredIUI-leseem,:idet i

or atalistViet-p in

andn re-er 5)

~_70r~HanOl

1~7onwn

ry as-mpor-

. Theon allamese

for all"n themagna-I-giving

USA may be prompLed by reasonshel own national interest. But his

proves that such a policy is self-ating. The Soviet eagerness for

ecEulcoexistence or, for that mat-, an alliance with American impe-

alism may lead to disaster. Whatmore, the Soviet strategy directlyIps the American policy of worldnquest and is in clear oppositionthe vital interests of the Vietna-

ese people. First, the Soviet-Ame-'can detente (and the consequent re-

:laxation of tension in Europe) en-urages the Americans to transfercir armies in Europe to South-Eastia and thus help them to intensify

their war efforts in Vietnam. Second-, the ideological shift to "peacefulansition to socialism" weakens the

national democratic and revolution-movements throughout the world,

rticularly in Asia, Africa and Latinerica. This again helps thC\ Ame-

can imperialists to deploy theirees in a particular area. Thirdly,

ussia's anti-China campaign lessenserican's risk in extending theiret beyond the frontiers of Viet-

m. But will the Soviet Union sur-\e if China and Vietnam perish?

SISIR MAZUMDARCalcutta

Atrocities In VietnamI have been reading with interest

YOUI recent editorials on Vietnamd have to remark that despite youreasional lapses into undiluted adu-

ation for Mao's China and its regi-ented way of life and policies, youve succeeded in spotlighting the

American atrocities in Vietnam. Yountilated the views 9f many people

the world when you remarked,There can be no talk of disarma-

nt with mass murderers; there iso sense in talking about peace inuter space while the burnt out fleshf Vietnamese children cries out forngeance" (December 23).I do not believe that Hanoi is en-

tIrely free from blame on the issuethe war in Vietnam. But it is in-

. putably the hawks over Hanoi that\e played havoc with the lives ofe Vietnamese. The Americans start-

ed the war avowedly for fightingrute force, bad faith, injustice, op-ression and persecution. But theyntinue the war by the greatest out-ge on civilized values. They rainalh on unarmed civilians, prompt-b} the power of physical force,

owscientific cunning, industrial organi-sation and ruthless determination,and not by love of democracy or carefor freedom. They carryon theirbarbarities unenfeebled by anyscruples of conscience, honour or in-ternational morality .

It is distressing, and no less dis-gusting, to see the 'non-aligned' and'socialist' countries remaining abso-lutely unconcerned at, if not becom-ing passive accomplices in, this inhu-man massacre. As you said in oneof your leading articles, one of themost disquieting features of the1960s is the acceptance, after a briefhue and cry, of any fait accompli,however inhuman and barbarous, in-volving the Americans.

S. PARAMESWARANCalcutta

Congress Vs StudentsI read Mr Sadananda Mukherjee's

letter (December 9). It is ridiculousto say that the student Subhas Bast:could have "paralysed the academicworld of Calcutta." Subhas Bosewas then ouly a student and hiscareer was in the formative stage.Many years went by after the Presi-dency College incident, before SubhasBose acquired his strength. MrMukherjee misses another pointabout the expulsion of Subhas Bose.Originally the expulsion order was akind of rustication, but later on itwas so modified as to enable him tocomplete his studies from anothercollege. So it can be argued that,because the expulsion order waswithdrawn, it was possible for SubhasBose to become what he did becomein the later part of his life.

Did Mr Mukherjee see a cartoonin a Congressi paper (Amrita BazarPatrika) about the smashing of thePresidency College laboratory? Thecartoon blamed outsiders for theevent. Has he read the report of theDarpan representative (16.12-66)about the role of the agent provo-cateur in giving the police an excusefor assaulting the students mercilesslywith tear-gas shells and lathis ?

Regarding his statement about Stu-dent Federation adherents in othercolleges, I beg to remind him of therecent expulsion order on a studentof Manindra College; before that,two students of Barrackpore Rastra-guru Surendranath College were ex-pelled ; an attempt was made to forcetransfer certificates on four students

who offered garlands at the Rupnara-yanpur Sahid Bedi; the KamarpurCollege was closed down because thestudents demanded a union; theelected union of the Calcutta Suren-dranath College was not allowed tofunction.

Professors and eminent jurists haverecommended acquittal of youngmen for their first offence. Underthe provisions of "Probation of Of-fenders' Act", a statute of this Gov-ernment, boys up to 18 cannot beconvicted for wrongful confinementfor the first time. The adamant atti-tude of the authorities who are seek·ing to put a stop to the educationalcareer of certain students for theira.lleged offences is nothing but vindic-tiveness.

YOGMA Y A DEVICalcutta

Apropos of Mr S. Mukherj'ee'sletter (December 9) as an ex-studentof Presidency College and also an-ex-boarder of Eden Hindu Hostel Ishall pose certain questions to MrMukherjee.

~here are certain allegationsagalOst some students for mishavingwith the Superintendent of EdenHind.u ~osteI. Bu t was there anyenquuy lOtO these allegations? Werethe. alleged students given an oppor-tunIty to defend themselves?

In this connection, I should liketo cite an example. When I was aboarder in Eden Hindu Hostel in

. 1956, a studen t who happened to bethe mess secretary of the hostel wasfound guilty (by the hostel commit-tee headed by the then superinten-de~t .of the hostel) of gross misappro-pn~tIon ?f mo~ey. This type ofsenous mIsconduct means simultane-ous expulsion from the college andits hostel. But that student was noteven "expelled" from the hostel.Though he was silently forced toleave the hostel, he was not simul-taneously "expelled" or "forced toleave" the College (Presidency Col-lege). I make a categorical distinc-tion between the two words_Hex_pelled" and "forced to leave" forobvious reasons.

Teacher-cum-administrator (speci-ally in Government colleges) are notalways fair and impartial and theirattitude to progressive students is notal",:ays beyon,d suspicion. So anyumlateral actIon by such persons inauthority against any student cannotbe immediately approved by fair-

21

minded p~rsons who know aboutthese things. For example, there wasan occasion when the President ofthe Medical College Student Unionwas expelled by the Principal fromthe college because he participated inthe Afro-Asian Students' Conferenceheld in Bandung in 1955. Of course,the students of Bengal took up thecause and the Principal was forcedto resign.

I can cite many more exampleswhere students were victimised byteachers-cum-examiners when theydiffered with their teachers on cer-tain extra-academic affairs. Person~in authority in Government institu-tions sell their conscience and do grossinjustice to certain students in orderto have their service extended afterretirement and for other personal in-terests. As the matter stands today,only an enquiry commission headedby a distinguished person can give arational verdict.

While certain professors in Presi-dency College threaten to resign, theteaching staff of Maulana had Col-lege have passed a resolut.ioll certify-ing the conduct of the student whowas also expelled from Eden HinduHostel on the samp. charge. What aterrible difference in ° teacher's atti-tude in two different Government ins-titutions !

As for myself, I am not foreign tothe students' attitude in Bengal. Iwas a student leader in my collegedays (President, Medical College Stu-dents' Union, 1961-62) and today Ihappen to be a teacher in a medi-cal college. Though I stay far awayfrom Calcutta, I feel proud of thein tellectual standards of the studen tsof Bengal in contrast to the studentsin other parts of the country and Ihope I shall not be the on Iv one intaking the attitude of the authoritiesagainst the students with a little bitof salt. I wish sanity will return andlustice will be dO:le to the students.

SISIR K. MAJUMDARJamnagar

LolitaWith regard to his review of Lolita,

your drama critic appears to have agood espionage network o.n thebasis of which he can know the age-group of our members, ascertain themotives behind the naming of theplay etc. but one of his aides musthave misinformed him about the men

22

NOW

responsible for designing, the set anddirecting the lighting. The entire crea-tive work in this production includ-ing set-design and lighting scheme tothe minutest detail, was done by themembers of Theatre Workshop, andthe help of Messrs Bimal Chakrabortyand Swarup Mukherjee, who belongto a dillerent group, were only soughtfor some technical know-how.

Seocondly, your critic convenientlyshifts from the position of a critic tothat of a spectator when he grumblesabout the short duration of the play(is he a regular Hindi-film-goer?) orlines up with a handful of spectatorswho applauded when a hooligan onthe stage clamoured for revengeagainst Pakistani atrocities? Weknow of spectators who always appre-ciate the right thing for a wrong rea-son and, to be frank, we do not carefor them.

Thirdly, your critic should haveelaborated how Sartre treated thecolour problem in its depth and howour adaptor lost the social point ofthe Hindu-Muslim communal pro-blem, touching only the surface-s}'mp-toms. Irresponsible brief comments I"

carry no sense and deserve no seriousnotice.

Lastly, about some of our p~or act-ing carppany who look more plebesthan aristocrats. The Pals, althought.hey shout about their noble lineage(they do so, because shouting is theirbusiness) have no feudal heritage.They belong to a class of post-war andpost-independence growth who neednot necessarily look aristocrats. Wewonder how many MPs and indus-trialists your critic has come across.Moreover, we have seen Mr SambhuMitra, who does not look an inchGreek, playinOg Oedipus Rex or agentleman, who is far from beinghandsome, playing the Bengali coun-terpart of an Italian aristocrat in aPirandello play. After all, your cri-tic should remember that play is thething.

Like Mr Sekhar Chatterjee, we areseriously thinking of forming an asso-ciation against the so-called dramacritics. If such things go on happen-ing in the name of criticism we maynot be always this sober.

AJoy GANGULISecretary, Theatre Workshop

Calcutta

Anything goes in the name of theexperimental theatre movement inCalcutta, and along with it, Lolita.

While I thought that your dracritic was mighty generous in ching to review even an aberration IiLolita} I am shocked that there cxipeople who want to defend it I T.man who wrote the Bengali script fthis play should know that it isyond his power to handle filth. Ame if I am afraid of Virginia WooI[frankly, if that means Lolita-t)smut, I am

In his hurry to play the Ladman to Maya Ghosh, one Mr GopBanerjee has discovered something imy review which, unfortunately, I (not remember to have written.course, I did not find anything fiabout Sm Ghosh's acting. But I d:not say anything derogatory eithabout her as Mr Banerjee wouldlieve. I simply suggested that all thysterics and hard attempts of SGhosh fell flat because the unharadaptation of Sartre never allowedto perceive the problem against whishe was fighting. Mr Banerjee waultell us that the general acting of ttroupe conc~rned was superb. Ifmajor actor of the company prnounces the word barta as balm nealy ten t.imes, I would not pronounhim to be a superb actor. Finally, tglowing trib1Jte of a renowned dirtor of a famous troupe does not proanything. Such statements are irrponsible. Reason should be the soguiding principle. For example,I call Mr Banerjee a genius withooffering any reason, he might not Iiit.

Reita FariaIf Reita Faria could be allowed

go to South Vietnam to entertain tAmerican soldiers in her individucapacity, the same permission shoulbe given to other Indians will:nggo to North Vietnam to serve therevolunteers. Clearly this shouldthe other end of the logic voiced ithe speech of Mrs Indira GandAnd if it be so, it is high time Idian intellectuals organised a groof volunteers for North Vietnamfight against imperialism theretheir individual capacity.

NIRMAL K. B.Hoog

JANUARY 6, 1

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