Joan Robinson: The Poverty of Nations KN Ramachandran

Joan Robinson: The Poverty of Nations

K. N. Ramachandran: Peking On Prague

G. P. Deshpande : A Brief Encounter

France : A Beginning

Monitor: The Cubans

Dick Krooth: U. S. in Asia

Satyajit Ray : Translations

Anirudha Gupta: Why Write. English?

Ashok Rudra : Russell's Autobiography

H. K. Sanyal: Shikar Ta.le,~

View from Delhi • Calcutta Diary • The Press

Special Number SEPTEMBER 28, 1968 Price One Rupee

KALPANA.!iEMI2

•..

',Scland

In ia's~Developing Economy

YOUR GUARANTEE

~••• Bm«At. El.£GTRIC CIMPAlY OF lftDIA' J lIMlTlD'0,. CALCUTTA· NEW DELHI· KANPUR· PATMA· BOMBAY· "A'GPUR· AHMEDABAD

MADRAS· SECUNDERABAD • BANGALORE • ERNAKULAM . COIMBAlORli

Tllill __ I'{RM,iTEDUS!R-TI{ G[t(R.\ ElECTR~COlI''''' Of IH01.C .-'L1lI11U _

Electricity is indispensable to industrialisation. A better example of this can hardly be found than thedevelopments in India over the past decade and a ~alf. .

Since 1951, when our great cycle of five year plans was launched, electricity generated in India halgrown from 1.8 million KW in 1951 to about 11 million KW in 1965-a 600 percent im:rease. As thepace of our industrialisation quickens and its scale enlarged, the figure is estimated to touch 40 millionKW by 1975.

Since 1911, when India's first steel plant went into production marking our entry into the modernindustrial age, G.E.C. has be.en playing a key role in providing integrated electrification service to ourvital'nation building projects. An instance of G.E.C.'s integrated electrification service is seen in the India"Copper Corporation's establishment at Ghalsila. G.E.C. service covered every aspect of electrification ..from the study of the specific nature of the job, the making of the,blue prints, the designing of the variedand complicated electrical equipment, to their installation and Switching on.

During the past few years, because of its vast know-how and experience of Indian conditions and itsworld-wide resour.ces, G.E.C. has been called upon to provide integrated electrification service to vitaland gigantic projects that are helping to change the face of India ...projects that include the BhakraoNangal Dam in the Punjab and the Hirakud Dam in Orissa. the Steel Works at Durgapur and Defenceestablishments such as the Shell and Forge Plant at Kanpur.

Integrated electrification service is one example of how G.E.C. is playing its role in the clev~lopment ofme country's economy. ,

FRONTIERVol. I: Nos. 25-27:: Sept. 28, 1968

On Other PagesCOMMENTS 4HUNGER IN GOAL-PARA

ARUN KUMAR CHAKMA 5CALCUTTA DIARY

CHARAN GUPTA 6VIEW FROM DELHI

THE LEFT-OUT LEFTFROM A POLITICAL CORRES-PONDENT 7

THE IMPORTANCE OFBEING CONSISTENT

K. N. RAMACHANDRAN 9THE POVERTY OF NATIONS

JOAN ROBINSON 13A BRIEF ENCOUNTER

G. P. DESHPANDE 16FRANCE: A BEGINNING 17

. THE CUBANSMONITOR 20

U. S. ECONOMIC POLICY INEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA

DICK KROOTH 27HUMANISATION OF WAR?

T ARUN CHATTERJEE 33THE PRESS

LESSONS OF A STRIKECOMMENTATOR 35

NONSENSE RHYMESTranslator: SATAYjIT Roy 38WHAT'S THE GOOD OF

WRITING IN ENGLISH?ANIRUDHA GUPTA 39

PORNOGRAPHY IN INDIAM. S. PRABHAKAR 43

BOOK REVIEWRUSSELL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 47SHIKAR TALES 49

BENGALI CINEMAKARUNA SANKAR RAY 50

TRANSPORTS OF PAINMOHIM ROODRO 55

LETTERS 57

.Editor: Samar Sen

PRINTED AT MODERN INDIA PRESS,7, RAJA SUBODH MULLICK SQUARE,CALCUTTA-13 AND PUBLISHED WEEKLYBY SAMAR SEN FROM 61, MOTT LANE,

CALCUTTA-13

THE TOKEN STRIKETHE Government ,of India, as we noted briefly in the previous issue,

set in full motion its r~pressive machine ·to thwart the one-day tokenstrike of Central Government employees. Not satisfied with the arbitrarypowers it already has under the so-called ordinary law and service rules ofemployees, it /promulgated two ordinances on the eve of the strike whose,only parallel is the infamous Defence of India Rules. Millions of emplo-yees were placed at the mercy of baton-swinging, trigger-happy policemenwho were on the rampage all over the country for several days. More thanseven thousand people, including the leaders of the striking employees, werearrested on one pretext Or another. On the day of the strike the policefired at least in four places, killing five--eight, according to unofficial re-ports-and injuring fifty; lathi and tear-gas, which have become part ofthe non-violent outfit of the police, were resorted to o.n countless occa-sions; prohibitory orders under Section J 44 Cr. P.C. were imposed indis-criminately, and the Army- stood by to rush to the aid of the civil authoritiesat a moment's notice. The Government did not depend' on violence aloneto break the will of the employees. Unions run by known and crypto-Congressmen hastily dissociated themselves from the strike move, and All-India Radio set a 'record in purveying government propaganda by announ-cing daily the names of unions disfavouring the strike, Large sums werespent in advertisements in newspapers, such of them as were being publish-ed at the time, to show how unreasonable the ernployees were in demand-ing need-based wages.

Despite government provocations and police violence, the employeesmostly remained peaceful. There was no picketing in any' of the offices inthis city, and a large number .of employees kept away of their own accordignoring the rave and bluster of the authorities. Policemen with guns onthe ready had an idle time in different ,offices ; so had many of those whoreported for duty on the day. In spite of the Government's tall claims,most of the offices appeared forlorn ; perhaps the "loyal" employees, whohad been promised free meals and overtime, preferred to work behind clos-ed doors and pulled-down shutters. But the only' de:partment with which

, the people come in daily contact 'did not function ; the postal services werepractically suspended, and even official exaggerations could not take theattendance beyond a miserably low figure. The telegraph services weresaid to be in the opposite ext-reme with mOre than normal attendance, butthe claim could not be tested as most of the important and busy channelswere conveniently "down". However, in this strike the number of thosewho attended office is not so 'illllPortant as that of thOse who, did not. The

~ temporary employees among the numerous strikers have risked their jobsand police persecution; the permanent employees are faced with a breakin service, and before joining the strike they had all to make up their mindsthat they would forego their jobs or seniority, and leave and pensionarybenefits that had accrued to them through years of service. Such bravedetermination cannot be universal. There must be many who could notjoin the strike because the choice before them was so cruel and drastic; indifferent circumstances they would perhaps have opted for united action.

The Government of India prides itself in being a model employer.

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4

4J

the Congress was thrown out ofpower in the State toward the earlypart of the year. For the seven mon-ths ending in July, the supply of ricetrickled down to only 97,000 tonnes,and of total foodgrains slumped to630,000 tonnes. What about 1968?There is no United Front regime anymore, for the first two mouths of theyear the Congress was back in power;even today, Shri Dharma Vira, aBharat incarnate, is administering theState on behalf of the Congress; be-sides the mid-term election has to becontested and won. The hapipy days,therefore, are here again. Over theseven. months, January to July thisyear, rice supplies from the Centrehave revived dramatically, reaching afigure of 1,67,000 tonnes; the supplyof total foodgrains too has soared to910,000 tonnes over the period.

Procurement of rice this year hasbeen about the same as in 1967. Wherecould Mr Jagjivan Ram then discoverthis 70,000 tonnes of extra rice whichhe has been able to placate West Ben-gal with? There is, however, no need!fur Poirot to unravel .the mystery.West Bengal's gain, it would seem,is Kerala's loss. Between Januaryand July, 1967, Kerala received fromthe Centre 375,000 tonnes of rice;this year, over the same months, thesupply was down to 321,0.00 tonnes.Roughly four.Jfifths of the additionalquantity of rice with which West Ben-gal has been blessed can thus be linkedto the highway robbery in Kerala.Food flows in wherever there are mid-term elections; food does not flow inwhere the Congress is not inpower.

This journal is rooted in West Ben-gal, and, in a mood' of rabid parochia-lism, one might argue that gift riceshould be eaten, and not looked in themouth. But there is still scope fora nagging sus,picion; suppose the Con-gress crashes to a defeat in the Nov-ember poll, will the rice continue tokeep flowing ? .

The great Left p-arties could notp~rha;ps care less. They are moreinterested' in gauging the depths ofshamelessness Mr Morarji Desai iscapable of. Meanwhile, let rice turnbitter, bitterer, bitterest.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

The- Politics of RiceBut the precedent it has set for howto deal with a day's token strike willshame the private employers. TheGovernment and the private employers There are occasional Soekarno-stylehave now leagued together to deny incantations of confrontasi. Depend-the employees their legitimate rights. ing on the exigencies of the electionMr Hathi's elephantine handling of the season, the familiar polemics rend thestrike of newspaper employees is an air; the conspiracy of the Centre mustexample; in resorting' to fascist me- be exposed, Mrs Indira Gandhi mustthods to break the token strike of its fulfil our demands or else, our patienceemployees the Government has en- J1as been long overreached, et cetera.couraged the private employers to ex- But nobody is fooled. Parliamentarycel themselves. To strike terror in democracy is a debilitating game; itthe employees may not be the sole makes gentlemen of erstwhile spitfires.purpose of this countrywide show of One has just to watch the crop of Leftstrength. Both the Prime Minister politicians who adorn the Rajya andand the Deputy Prime Minister are Lok Sabhas; during the day, they usegoing to the U.S., and the show may up precious time jn raising trivial, sub-have been organised to impress upon jective issues. Come evening and ad-the American friends how 'firmly the journment, they are all convivialityGovernment was dealing with the abounding, sip drinks together withCommunists; it may be another way Cabinet ministers; .if you look hard',of telling the Americans that the Gov- you may discover one or two Swatan-ernment is not weak so far as' the . tra and Jana Sangh MPs tucked awayCommunists are concerned. Mrs Gan~ in the corner of the group photograph.dhi and Mr Desai are now assured of Nothing is any longer a matter ofan appreciative audience in America. It life and death. The magic wand ofis not the employees who introduced bourgeois respectability has deadened!politics in what is basically an eco- the spirit. Otherwise the parliamenta-nomic struggle ; their misery has been rians belonging to the Left parties,politicised by the Government to suit particularly those from West Bengalits own ends. and Kerala, would have perhaps felt

constrained to concern themselves-even if symbolically-over the infa-mous goings-on with respect to foodsupplies to these States. But no,while in New Delhi, they choose tobehave as the denizens of that wret-ched place do; their priorities shift, thetrivial displaces the essential; Instancesof individual nepotism, in their scaleof recently-acquired values, turn outto be more im;portant than those ofwholesale political nepotism.

The facts are not in dispute. TheLeft politicians, if only they have thedesire, can have these from Mr Jag-jivan Ram for the asking. Comparelike with like; consider only the firstseven months, January to July, ofthe calendar years 1966, 1967 and1968. Over this period during 1966,total releases of foodgrains from theUnion Government's stocks for WestBengal amounted! to' nearly 900,000tonnes, of which rice constitutedaround 150,000 tonnes. Thingschanged in 1967, you must remember

The Prime Minister's broadcast on .the eve of her Latin American safariand the day after many heads hadbeen broken-some never to stiragain-showed the extent of hypocrisyOur rulers are capable of. There can beno need-based minimum wage at thepresen~ moment, she declared andpointed to the millions all over thecountry who ear~ much less than Cen-tral Government empJoyees, particu-larly the kisans. But do the neo-Moghuls of her Government, whenthey draw their salaries and perquisit-es, ever think of the millions of starv-ing tillers of the soil? Mrs Gandhipraised the spirit of discipline anddedication of those who did not strike,as if the extraordinary repressivemeasures were not responsibh~ forpreventing the spirit of discontent anddefiance from expressing itself on amuch wider scale than it did.

5

the monsoon remains under water andfor the rest of the year is as sandyas a desert. The refugees, howevergood at cultivation, are unable to domiraculous tricks on such land 'andhave, therefore, to depend on the cashdole of Rs 5/- per week per familv,which also is not always forthcoming.Even the scope of earning as agricul.. ,tural labourer is severely limited.Throughout the year they look forwork, but there is none, or, if thereis; the wage is 50 paise a day, i.e.one-sixth of tIle price of a kilogram ofrice. And it is under these circums-tances, that Mohan Sangma, UdaiSangma, Dingram Sangma, BrajaSangma, Jahis Richil, Yung Kock andMawi Marak went the way the familiesof Kailash and Digendra had gone.

We got harrowing reports of star-vation deaths from Dudhnoi, Kharaand Tangabari villages as early as May.The seven-year-old daughter of Girin-dra Chakraborty, five members of thefamily of Gopal Nandy, Jyotsna BalaDevi and her two-year-old son, the'fifty-year-old Thakurchand Paul and40-year-old Sanyasi Burman were notthe only ones who had died of star-vation. I had the veracity of thesereports cOTI'firmedand also saw thefaces of many men, women and chil-dren starving to death (a number ofthem might have died by now). Every-one I met in these vilages complainedof the criminal inaction of the Gov-ernment which always turns a deaf earto the SOS of the starving hundreds.The Government has been urged timeswithout number to take deterrent mea-sures against the machinations of food-grain traders, but it has done nothing.Every ·day tonnes of foodgrains aresmuggled with impunity by the agentsof potedars and hoarders and sold atfantastic prices in town areas and theadjoining States. There is no fairprice shop, not to Sip;eakof any arran-gement for free distribution of food-,grains among ,the distressed peoplein the far-flung areas of Goalpara.The poor peasants and agriculturallabourers made repeated appeals tothe Government for seed and agricul-tura'! ioans arid' exemption from pay-

ARUN KUMAR CHAKMA

Hunger In Goalpara

SEPTEMBER, 28,' .J 9{>8- ,

old man had sold him to a Shillongbabu far ten rupe~s who told him thathe would be paying another five rupeesevery month. Six months passed, butDigendra Rava, the old man, did not

WHILE the reorganisation issue ab- get a single paisa. Then one daysorbs the attention of the couri- Dimbu, the child, came back, unable

( try, the Goalpara district of Assam is to put up with the forced labour. Ofgoing through an agony almost unnoti- course Digendra, a landless agricultur-ced. Hunger stalks its southern part. al labourer, was happy that his grand-In most villages of South Goaljpara son had come back but he did nothundreds of people are heading for know how to feed the kid----he had notdeath through starvation. Some of seen ,rice or wheat during the last twothem have started deserting their months.homesteads, others are still managing Kailash Marak, next-door neighbourto live on wild Toots and herbs. of Digendra, along with three other

Walking past dark, dallljpi,dilapida- members of his family, had died with-ted hutments that were still to recover in the last three months,. one afterfrom the ravages of flood, I saw chil- another. Also a landless agriculturaldren with bellies the size of water- labourer, Kailash had gone without anymelons, arms and legs like matchsticks, work for the last six months. After

'wearing a stoic look. I saw worn-out many days and nights of anguish, heyouths, with eyeballs popp~ng out of left for the nearest town in search of asockets, and living skeletons of old job, leaving his children and wife be-men and women staring vacantly as hind to stand the cruellest humaQ or-though there was no telling when deal. The search for a job drove Kai-their tragedy would end. The women lash from one place to another. Thereleft their unclothed rickety babies in were city folk who needed a domesticthe care of the blazing sun. All of servant, but none of them was ready tothem were suffering from hunger, but [pay a single paisa apart from provid-nobody seemed to know about it. Or, ing food. At last he got a job in a

, maybe, they did not, like to talk about saw mill at Jorhat. But he could notit lest family planning angels should continue for long. The saw-millrun in to check the !population explo- owner sacked him when he was downsian. with typhoid. Broken in mind and

I beckoned to one of the children, spirit, one evening Kailash sneakedall clothed in rags, quarrelling in faint back to his village like a thief. Hisvoices over a piece of boiled sweet eldest son, 10-year-old Kripesh, hadpotato. I asked his name, but he been hired out by a jotedar as a cow-held his scrawny little hands pressed boy; his youngest son, 5-year-oldto his lips. Before I was able to draw Biresh, had died of starvation; hisout a single word from him, an old ' wife, Gangabashi, had left home withman-maybe, he looked much older her second child in search of foodthan his age-approached me, and and had not returned since. Kailashasked me if I was a man from Shillong. himself died ten days after his arrival.As I tried to grasp the implication of Hundreds of families in South Goal-his query, he murmured to himself para are struggling to survive. Tillcertain words, which, put together, August this year as many as 20 per-would mean: We need food, but sons had died of starvation in Bog-these Shillong babus and sahibs needwan-Chechapani village atone, whdlesome domestic servants. 9 others had died .of diseases

Pointing to the little boy, his grand-' which result from starvation. Mostson" who ket{Jtstanding with a strange, of these victims were Garo refugeesaloof sort of dignity, the old man said from East PakistaIl, Two hundredhe was the only one left in a family' ancf fifty .tribal refugee families were ..of six, all of whom had died as a result settled' in BOgWari-Chechajp,anivillage.of starvation, to look after this kid.: Each'r~fugee JamiJy WqS- offeu-ed )'Onc{},'after his parents had died, tIi~ bighas of uncu1tivable~'land 'which' ht

or into Government service. Thebanality of bloody career-mindednesswas given the coup de grace by theyoung men who started manning thebarricades on College Street in 1966.

If so is the story, I have my shareof bourgeois cowardice, and perhapsan excess of what passes for Bengali -cynicism. That a bunch of bhadralogyouth are ushering in revolution inthis hqpeless land of ours is a notionwhich I find very difficult to believe.This whole business of men stirringto "declass" th~mselves-and finallysucceeding in doing it-is also some-thing which passes my understanding;and of course my understanding hasbeen conditioned by the spectacle of

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

I could be asked, how could I beso cocksure? Perha;ps the revolution-aries of yesteryear, following the erst-.while custom, have migrated back tothe classrooms and laboratories?Perhaps they are repenting at leisure?Perhaps the are now quietly sittingfor their· examinations and mappingout iplans about how to recoup forthe lost years? Maybe some of themhave already joined as young execu-tives in this or that commercial firr.1and engaged in sleek public relationswork, learning to down scotch in theevening Or the art of stealing a collea-gues' wife? If any of these had hap-pened, that would once more assertthe triumph of matter over mind'--orover adolescent emotions.

It doesn't seem that it has. Oneor two among last season's revolution-aries have of course fallen prey tofamily blandishments, and have quiet-ly Ipoved back to the secure boredomof middle-class routine. But the majo-rity have held back. Several of themhave discontinued their studies. Youdon't 'find their faces in the CoffeeHouse; they dbn't ;pay you clandest-ine visits either. They have, as theidiom goes, burned their boats: theyhave decided to live dangerously andhave slipped into the West Bengalcountryside.

FRONTIER

name were there save a few familyplanning units operating in the vacu~urn. A state of pestilence seems tobe imminent. The inedibles on whichpeople are living will not be en<?ughto ward off cholera.

They certainly represented an al-together new \phenomenon in theBengal landscape. Maybe, in theirstark otherworldliness, they resembledthe terrorists of forty or fifty yearsago, but I would have no knowledgeof the latter-the specimens I havemet are now mostly degenerate oldfools. Besides, the young men whoused to drop in at my room duringthose day~ in 1966 were also remark-able in another way-almost all ofthem had done well in the examina-tions. Many professors went into rhap-sody over their scholasti~ achievements,even while disapproving of their extra-curricular adventures. nis-the mig-ration of the better crop of universityscholars into active-and what ismore, hazardous political work-hasnot happened in Bengal for quite a longtime. Compare their spirit with theattitude .of the "good" students tenor twenty years ago: the all-absorbingthought then was concentrated on car-eer-building--on getting a companyjob with the Imperial Bank of India,

in the picture; the happenings in thePresidency College and elsewhere grewfrom within and the young peo,ple Ihave in mind did not quite belong tothe set mode of Bengal's left politics.They were not jaded, they didn't talkin cliches, they were not interested insuch things as youth festivals andjunkets to some nondescript gast Eu-ropean city or other in the h~pe ofbrief dalliances with buxom, wheat-complexioned girls from the countriesof socialism. To graduate into thepoliticai establishment was the furthestfrom their intentions.

ment of land revenue instalments ofprevious loans for this year, but to noavail.

There is not only hunger. Peopleare suffering from virulent diseases,but no medical facilities worth the

Calcutta DiaryCHARAN GUPTA

WHERE are they now, those in-tense young men who had set

the College Street 0.'1 fire two seasonsago-and were around even as lateas those slightly indolent, somewhatdubious days last year? On infr~quent occasions, they used to drop in:lunkelppt hair, exuQerant growth ofyqung beard, burningly bright eyes,dishevelled apparel, usually of frailbuild, but still always exploding innervous energy. They wOl}ldtalk of thefutility of the system, argue about his-torical causation, pour disdain on theirconvention-bound teachers, try toconvince me of the inevitability ofthe Revolution. Contrary to whatgovernment Press notes were wont togive rlut, these young people were ex-tremely polite, which however didn'tmean that they would sit quietly andlisten to sanctimonious crap from alland sundry. For their age, they werefantastically well read: the range oftheir studies in particular would arousewonder and envy in those of uswhose university days ended beforethe close of the Second World War.Mind you, the revolt of the Calcuttastudents in 1966 came much, muchahead of the student insurgencies inEurope and America: the halcyondays in France no one could evenprognosticate about during thosedays when the Calcutta students madetheir own, very distinct revolution.Clearly, there was no international'demon,s~ation effeot 'at work here.Maybe partly it was Bengal's specialheritage at work here, but, all the same,there was a freshness in this stirring,a certain daring which set it apartfrom the student rallies and whoopiesin the forties and early fifties. The[pFofessional student leaders were not

6

FRONTIER

FROM A POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT

The Left-out Left

Congress. The communist left, ofcourse, has always been a more res-pectable parliamentary lot than theSamyukta Socialists.

When the larger question of thefuture of the two communist partiesis discussed in New Delhi, the obses-sion is with the developments of theimmediate past. Czechoslovakia nodoubt split the CPI wide open and therally against the pro-Soviet hardlinersled by Mr Dange is in fact a revoltagainst the old guard leadership.In a sense Moscow's hegemony overthe party as a whole is no longer un-challenged. The CPI (M), of course,managed to pifesent the image of aunited party on the Czechoslovakissue. So much so, an enthusiasticMoscow-lining journalist quantifiedthe position: three-quarters of theIndian comunist movement endorsedSoviet action in Czechoslovakia. (Thequarter let out obviously represents thedissenting half of the CPI which wantsto condemn the Soviet action).

Arithmetic aside, the CPI(M)moved closer to Moscow on this par-ticular issue while the CPI was divid-ed. The CPI leadership derived vica-rious pleasure at the CPI (M) splitfollowing the Burdwan plenum, andeven hoped that some sections of theCPI (M) would defect to the parentparty. But the CPI (M)'s stance onthe Czechoslovak issue, motivated byits anxiety to !prove its anti-Pekingbona fides, landed it nearest to Mos-cow, much to the embarrassment ofMr Dange and those who support hisline in the CPI.

The interests of the two communist

View from Delhi

honoured by the police; some of them pujas will be followed by that otherare in remote villages; some are sick. festival, the mid-term elections. WhileThey are short of food; in several indulging in the festivals, please spareareas, they are short of friends, but a thought for Bengal's brave youngthey are still not short of ideals and men. You may dislike them immen-dreams, This is festival time, the sely, but they stilI belong to you.

TO be sure, the cute little vodka-swigging thing in New Delhi's

Left cocktail circuit who tells you "0,dear me, the communists are finishedin India" belongs to the class affluen-ced by Soviet rupee trade or its Peo-ple's Democratic variant. Arid she

This is the season when, des,p~tethe might be right in a limited sense be-squalor of everyd'ay existence-or cause the moment the Establishmentsub-existence - Bengali households begins respecting a communist hepersuade themselves into some cheer. ceases to be one.Of course, even in this cheer, certain. Of the two communist parties, theelements are left out. More than a CPI has been respectable ever sincefifth of West Bengal's population are it disowned Telengana and acceptedMuslims. But, except for one or two May's Parliamentary Practice as theo~p.ortunists who want to cash in on most potent weapon of the Indian re-their gerrymandered votes, they are· volution. Its res\pcctability has neverthe forgotten category in West Ben- been in doubt since. The CPI(M)gal's social life. Pakistan or no, these took time becoming respectable. Par-millions, who are as much Bengalis as ticipation in the United Front minis-the bigoted Hindu mid'dle-class gar- tries in Kerala and West Bengal com-bage strewn in Garpar or Hatibagan, pleted the iPfocess.deserve to be drawn into the social No wonder the political upheavalintercourse. They are not ; the pre- in the country, expected as a resultsent festival time largely passes them of the Congress rout at the 1967 elec-over; and when their festival time tions, has not come off. -What ap-comes, the Hindu mid'dle class retreats pea red a political lPandemonium thenin horror. The left parties have scru- has gradually given place to a falsejpulously stayed away from playing stability and a new kind of status quoeven a pen'pheral 01 'n th tt t ip'olitics. There is a minimum con-reI e a eropto bridge these distant clusters of sensus among the political parties-Bengali society. from the Swatantra Party in Orissa to

the CPI (M) in Kerala-on the needIf you have some time, spare a to preserve the status quo. That marks

thought for this one-fifth of your fel- the quiet emasculation of the Indianlow citizens during the days of the left. Even the Samyukta Socialistfestival: they feel a particular emptiness Party, known for its predilection forduring those days. And if you can extra-jparliamentary methods, has sett-bring yourself round to, please do led to more comfortable forms ofspare' another thought for the intense struggle like flourishing photostat co-young men I was talking about. I pies of documents in Parliament tounderstand many of them are being discomfit individual Ministers of the

the very correct, very bourgeois lea-ders of the Communist Party in thisnook of the world. But irrespectiveof whether I suspend my sct1Pticismornot, I can certainly admire where ad-miration is due. Some of these youngmen have dared; most of us haven't.We write diaries and editorial com-ments running them down; ensconcedin our comfortable arm-chairs, we de-signate them adventurists. But, evenwhen instinct might tell us they arewrong, hopelessly wrong, let us havethed'ecency to salute their courage.And let us discard that worst of theshibboleths; these young men, what-

. ever else they might be, are no agentsprovocateurs, unless they are agentsprovocateurs of our conscience, pro-vided we still retain any.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968 , , 7

Moscow's interests when the cold warreplaced class struggle.

Right Or wrong, the communistmovement in Andhra Pradesh has anexperience all its own. The expulsionof Mr Nagi Reddy and others earlierthis year followed the CPI (M) leader-ship's failure to liquidate the StateCommittee whose plenum had rejectedthe Madurai ideological draft. Theclosest parallel one could think of wasthe attempt by the all-India leadershipduring the Telengana days to liqui-date the whole Andhra committee forits "adventurism."

The Telengana movement was call-ed off so that the CPI could ensurefor itself the legality needed for con-testing the 1952 elections and be-cause Moscow did not want anythingin the way of its attempts to stabiliseMr Nehru's non-alignment in a coldwar situation.

It is generally agreed that at theMadurai Congress of the CPI in 1954,the Andhra Pradesh leadership foundthat its thesis, which revealed a con-cern for Indian realities and not forMoscow's interests, was jettisoned ineffect so that the Moscow line con-veyed through the late Mr Harry Pol-litt could bs accepted.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

Colonial LegacyIn the spatial sense, the Communist

Party of India was a colonial legacy.The French ,pockets in Pondichery,Chandernagore, Mahe and Karaikalhad their own communist party, out-side the CPI. The Portuguese poc-ket of Goa had its Goan People'sParty even aflter 1947. The Com-munist Party of Pakistan was formedafter Partition.. Can there be a common tactical linefor the communist movement in all theStates of the Indian Union? And asa corollary, was there a need for asingle communist party for the wholecountry? The emergence of a power-ful. break-away communist party inAndhra Pradesh now poses the ques-tion again. The Congress will !per-haps turn out to be the first and the .last all-India party in the strictestsense. Soon it will be a federationof regional Congress parties becausethe [l,arty's Tamiland unit ha~ to move

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ment among the 'various extremistgroups-from the Naxalbari group tothe group in Tamilnad or Punjab-on the general line. But there hasbeen no effort at evolving a tactical linebecause there is no dialogue betweenthe groups. The biggest hurdle in theway of a third focus emerging in theIndian communist movement is theabsence of an agreed tactical line.

In the absence of an agreed tacti-cal line among the break-away com-munists in various States, should theAndhra Pradesh membership go with-out a party or an organisation? Andfor how long?

Theoretically, are aTI-India partiesrelevant to the politics of this sub-continent in the future? Will there beone third communist party Or manyof them?

All-India parties in the real senseare dying. The Congress cannothope to regain Kerala and Madras be-fore the party itself disintegrates. TheSwatantra Party is a scattered pheno-menon, in Gujarat, Rajasthan andOrissa. The Jana Sangh and theSSP are parties of the Hindi belt. TheCPI, after losing in West Bengal andKerala to the CPI (M), directed itsappeal to the Hindi States and showedsigns of success in its effort in the1967 elections. Its orientation wouldbe towards the populous Hindi-speak-ing belt. The CPI (M) is essentially'a coastal party. No single 'party hasan all-India future and for all purpos-es, every party including the Congresswill be a federation of cregional par-ties.

The extremist trend in the Andhracommunist movement is a distinct re-gional trend. Long before a particularline came to be internationally forma-lised as Maoism, the communists inAndhra Pradesh were fighting a gue-rilla war jn Telengana, under the mostreformist leadership of Mr P. C. Joshiin 1944, under the petty-bourgeoisadventurism of Mr B. T. Ranadivefrom 1948 and under an Andhra Ge-neral Secretary, Mr C. Rajeswara Rao,and even under a centrist leader likeMr Ajoy Ghosh. The CPI acceptedpeaceful. neo-Maoism not becausePeking wanted it but because it suited

8

parties are converging because boththe CPI and Moscow are now recon-ciled to the existence of the CPI(M).It is therefore not surprising in theleast if the CPI leadersh~p sees greatchances of unity 'in action betweenthe two parties. Both of them havesettled for the status quo. Neither ofthem has any inclination towards ex-tra-parliamentary methods which in-deed are not respectable,

Tne most cOITI:Pellingfactor behindthe CPI (M)'s new-found. predilectionfn~ the hundred per cent conformistparliamentary function and the iU-c"Jncealed disapPToval of extra-parlia-mentary struggles is its proximity to-power in Kerala and West Bengal.Mr E. M. S, Namboodiri;pad and MrJyoti Basu were the two Centrist lea-ders whose presence at Tenali in 1964and the need to carry them along tothe foundation Congress of theCPI (M) at Calcutta later resulted inthe postponement of a discussion onthe ideological issues. It is no accidentthat the Centrist leaders of 1964 areclosest to power Or are in power in1968. The CpI (M) leadership laterfound it much more comfortable toaccept the hegemony of the Centristleaders so that the party can keeppower in Kerala and make a bid for itin West Bengal. And any ban on theparty has been effectively forestalledthrough timely ex.pulsion of the "leftdeviationists. "

'Ultras'What is the future of the ultra

groups in various States? In AndhraPradesh, the m,ajority of the effectiveCPI (M) membership has gone out ofthe party, according to the leader-shi;p's own admission. In other States,the CPI (M) leadership is trying toconvert the political crisis into anorganisational crisis through expul-sions. Only when the eXipulsions orI[esignations are substantial could theproblem of a pariillel party or a"third party" arise. But in AndhraPradesh, some kind of an organisation,call it a co-ordinating committee ofcommunist revolutionaries or thethird communist part)', becomes neces-sary.

There appears to be a broad agree-

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K. N. RAMACHANDRAN .

The· Importance Of Being Consistent

the army and the people were behindthe party and fully backed the prOJPo-sed changes; lastly, Voland had nointention of getting out of the social-ist orbit. Moreover, the Soviet Unionhad guaranteed the sanctity of itsOder-Neisse Lrontier. China was con-vinced that the reform movementwould help in consolidating the socia-list system in Poland.

HungaryAs regards Hungary the lauthori-'

tarian character of the CommunistParty had greatly contributed to wide-ning the gulf between the p.arty andthe people. Economic and politicalra~ionalisation was the need of thehour; and the stagnant situation thatwas created by Rakosi, and later byGero, had to be remedied. The armywas also seething with discontent anda sizable section of it held anti-Sovietviews. These were the trends thatresulted in Imre Nagy's return to!power. The anti-Stalinist Hungarianleaders welcomed Gomulka's successin Poland because it indicated that theSoviet Union would not be an im-pediment, if the liberalization progra-mme did not undermine the unity ofthe bloc. The Chinese also conce-ded at the beginning ·that the Hunga-rian moves were genuine ones and thatthese could be encouraged to strength-en Hie socialist system. However,when the events took a different turnin Hungary, the Chinese Govern-ment urged the Soviet Union to takestern measures, and fully sUPlP0rtedthe Soviet -action. The Chinese sup-por·t to Soviet military interv.ention inHungary was again a carefully reason-ed-out !position. The Chinese arguedthat what had begun as a reform move-ment quickly turned into an instru-ment for demolishing socialism itself.Further, there was a split in the Hun-garian party and the army, and Hun-gary even asked for international neu-trality to be guaranteed by the fourBig Powers. Any failure to take ac-tion, the Chinese implied, would havejeqpardised the socialist movement inEastern Europe, particularly at thatjupcture when the cold warriors wereon the raIll!Page._ Thus although theChinese supported the Hungarian

ts (of any shade) are farthest frompolitical power through parliamentarymeans and a distinct communist tac-tical line for the State could emergehere. The Indian communist move-ment would itself become !polycentric,with perhaps a number of third com-munist parties horizontally scatteredover the sub-continellt:. This is some-thing neither the CPI nor the CPI(M) would relish contemplating.

along lines unacceptable to 'the partyin the Hindi belt. One party afteranother will begin facing a new setof compulsions because sub-nationalaspirations, the level of political deve-lopment in various States and the un-even growth of the communist move-ment in various States have not beenseriously taken into account by theseparties in the past.

In Andhra Pradesh, the Communis-

IF Leon Trotsky, that unmentionable those which happened in Poland, Hun-character among diehard comrades gary and Yugoslavia, and now Cze-

- betrayer and all that - had been choslovakia. To each of these deve-alive today, he might have congratula- lopments, the Chinese have respondedted· Chairman Mao on having at various levels, but there has alwaysstolen his thunder with charac- been an underlying ideological,consis-teristic Chinese aplomb. When the tency.Chinese Government described the' Let us take for instance, the ChineseSoviet intervention in Czechoslovakia Jovernment's attitude to the events

, as "the most barefaced and most ty- which happened in Poland in 1956 inpical specimen of fascist !power poli~ the wake of the Twentieth Party Con-tics', Trotsky would have thought that gress of the CPSU. In the EighthMao had perhaps said the last word Plenum of the Central Committee of-or the last sentence-On the bank- the Polish Communist Party in Octo-,ruptcy of Soviet ideology operated by . ber 1956, the adherents of the Polishgrey men who are eu:phemistically cal- road to socialism headed by Gomul-led "technocrats". ka won a significant victory over the

This directly takes us to a consi- Stalinists, popularly known as thederation of China's views on the 'Natolin' group, despite the uninvitedSoviet Union's relations with the East presence of Khrushchev and his col-European countries .. ' It may be said leagues in Warsaw. The Sovietsat the outset that those who have rea- feared the possible consequences of thesoned that the strong Chinese criti- prOJJosed reforms, particularly thecism of Soviet action in Czechoslova- chain reaction that it may set off inkia is a propaganda stunt aimed at the entire Eastern Europe. When themaligning the Soviet Union have not Soviets politically failed to alter theunderstood the issue at all. For, if' course of events, they began contem-the Chinese reSfPonsehad been an iso- (plating the use of guns to settle thelated instance, a consequence of the issue. This was evidenced by theSino-Soviet split, then their case is movement of Soviet and Polish troopslikely to be strong. On the other under Soviet command. It is wellhand, if all the events in the Soviet known now that China at this junc-Union's relations with Eastern Europe ture intervened and urged the Sovietssince 1956 are to be taken into con- to avoid military action in Poland ..sideration-as it should be--then The Chinese thinking was basedone could discern a very consistent on the follownig factors: First, thepattern in China's responses. _ His- Polish Communist Party was in full!torically speaking, the major events· control of the situation and the re-in Eastern Europe since the Twentie- form movement was progressing on ath Party Congress of the CPSU are course carefully charted out; second,

SEPTEMBER 28, 19689

ts

road to socialism, they withdrew theirsuPtport when they found that theroad would lead to a different desti-nation. The Ta Kung Pao (Novem-ber 13, 1956) reflecting on both thePolish and Hungarian events, foundmany similarities as well as differences.It significantly noted that both move-ments began as mass-based ones andthat the demand of the people of bothcountries was for the strengthening ofdemocracy, independence, and equali-ty, as well as for higher levels of ma-terial welfare. As the journal put it,"The demands were put forward inorder, for their satisfaction would notonly consolidate the people's demo-cratic system of the two' countries,but also foster unity among socialistcountries". However, the two move-ments took dissimilar courses. TheHungarian party lost control of theleadership to a minority of reactiona-ries, while the Polish party was ineffective control of the situation. Thelesson to be drawn from these ex;pen-ences, the paper asserted, is that weshould carefully differentiate "the legi-timate demands of the masses fromthe conspirational activities of theminority" .

Moreover, Peking with a remark-able detachment did not categorizeevery Hungarian who was opposed tothe Soviet guns and battled againstthem as a "counter-revolutionary". Thiswas in clear contrast to Moscow's[rather unsophisticated categorization.In a revealing statement, the Jen-min-Jih-pao (November 13, 1956) remark-ed that "those who were dissatisfiedwith the work of the former governmentwere of various types and even thosewho participated in the rebellion wereof various types. They were not allfascist elements." In short, Peking'sanalysis of these two situations hadmany underlying assumptions. Pekingbelieved--and still does-that when acontrolled revolution is set in motionfully under the guidance of the com-munist party, there is no need for anyundue apprehension, as regards thepossible course of events. Further,the masses may have genuine aspira-tions and they have to be met withoutimpairing the credibility of the socialistsystem. Lastly, there is no justi1fica-

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,tion for violating the sovereignty of asocialist country when it is effectivelycontrolled by the communist [party.The last point was reiteratedat the XXII Congress of the CPSUwhen Moscow attempted to imposeits general line on the internationalcommunist mov~ment. Chou En-lai,repdying to Moscow's statement, said:"We hold that if, unfortunately dis-putes and disagreements have arisenamong the fraternal parties and frater-nal countries we should resolve themby following the principles of equalityand achievement of unanimity throughconsultilltion.'; (Peking Review, No.43, 1961). In short, the Chineseimplied that no authoritarian and uni-lateral decision by Moscow or by amajority rigged up by Moscow willbe accepted ..

Even in the case of Yugoslavia theChinese adopted a very moderate at-titude in the beginning in the interestof what they considered to be theunity of ,th~ socialist world. However,in December 1956 in a statement en-dorsing the Moscow Declaration whichwas issued after the East Europeanupheaval had subsided, the Chinesemildly but firmly rebuked Yugoslavia

. for its insistence on the absolute parti-cularity of the Yugoslav path to socia-lism and for its almost total rejectionof international obligations. The Chin-ese advice turned! into a vitriolic at-tack only when Tito fully assumed theself-styled posture of a mediator be-tween the two irreconcilable systems.

In the light of this record, one needhave no surprise about China's res-:ponses to the Soviet intervention inCzechoslovakia. The Chinese Gov-e,rnment does not believe that ~eCzech situation' warranted a militaryintervention. The Czech CommunistParty was in full control of the situa-tion and could control the moves ofa "reactionary minority". It is truethat the Czech party programme, fromthe Chinese point of view, had,the strong odour of revisionism,but the Chinese have not saidthat it is either reactionary orcounter-revolutionary. Moreover, theCzechs being revisionists, should not, ifrules of logic are to be accepted, bean eye-sore to the Soviets, who have

themselves trodden the primrose pathto "degeneration". Thus, commentingon the intervention on August 22, theofficial statement pointed out that theSoviet action revealed "big nationchauvinism, national egoism and im-lPerialist jungle law .. " Premier ChouEn-lai, speaking at the Rumanian Daynational reception on August 23, waseven mOre forthright: "The act ofnaked intervention has brought ou~to the full the grisly fascist features ofthe Soviet revisionist renegade cliqueand has fully revealed its extremeweakness; it has proclaimed the totalbankruptcy of modern revisionism."The People's Daily (August 23) com-pared the Soviet action to .Hitler's ag-gression in the late thirties and thepresent American action in Vietnam.(Hsinhua Selected News Items No.35).

Since 1956, the Chinese line, onecould !perceive, had ,Constantly em-phasized the theme of the need foreffecting an agreeable fusion betweenuniversal principles and national spe-cifics. Having successfully domesti-cated Marxism-Leninism to require-ments of China's conditions and beingaware of the global dimensions of thatphilosOiPthy,the Chinese advocated theapplication of the tested formula tothe East European nations, who werestriving to discover the dynamic pro-perties that go to make a healthy mix-ture. They had also repeatedly war-

.ned the Soviet Union against the peri-lous course of ignoring the importanceof national specjlfics. Moreover theChinese point out that when ideologyitself has been pushed down to a poorsecond in the Soviet hierarchy ofvalues and consequently as a demon-stration effect in Eastern Europe, .theSoviets have no authority to prescribeinviolable articles of faith.

In the past, as noted earlier, Peking!pulled the chestnuts out of the firefor Moscow and supported the Sovietswhen it was imperative to do so inthe interests of the bloc. It had thenthe ho,pe that the errors of the pastwould be rectified. The Soviet inter-vention in Czechoslovakia has onceagain proved to the Chinese that theerrors are being multiplied.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

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the activities of the local activists(thanks to the communication and in-formation network), elaborating thegeneral perspective and bringing aboutspeci1ficchanges in all the institutionaldomains, notably in the matter ofsocialist economic planning; facilita-ting the creation of cad:res capable ofputting in place and running the cen-tral institutions of the revolutionarysociety.

The knowledge so long was thatnothing was possible without the Com-munist Party of France and the CGT.The knowledge henceforth is that no-thing is possible with the CPF and theCGT as they are. Unfortunately thefirst assertion remains true even whenthe second imposes itself. So theCPF and the CGT should be changedbut they themselves will not do it.This can be brought about only bypressure from the revolutionary baseand that of events.

ElectionsHowever, the elections can also

result in, if they are won against qaul-lism, a resumption of the offensive.Not that there should be any illusionabout the virtue of the governmentbrought through elections won by the"left", but a return of the majoritywould seem to justify the policy ofthe Communist Party, confirm it in itsdesire-its dream and even practicallyits refusal-to decide revolution onlyfrom above. On the contrary, the ar-rival of a left majority in Parliamentmight oblige de Gaulle to combat itoverty and illegally, Or to quit; itwould create a situation, with thedevelopments unforeseeable today, andmight give the action of the vanguardand then the masses the opportunitiesthat the ossified apparatus wouldsoon make them lose.

The more so, as the French capital-ist system has suffered a rupture ofequilibrium which will sharpen fOr along time its contradictions. It willprecipitate a succession of crises andwill intensify the class struggle. Thewage increases which the working classis going to force out are of such am-plitude that the system would not beable to absorb them on its presentstructure. The employers will try to

seizure of revolutionary power by theworking class.

The type of party and action capa-ble of bringing about a revolutionarycrisis had been made clear by defaultin the course of these events.

The new tJ1peof revolutionary partymay not be satisfied with being a cen-tralised and structured organizationconceived with a view to capturing theState apparatus by legal process.Similar conquest will remain, eitherimpossible or, even if made possibleby a stroke of chance, always entailrisks both political (loss of allies nece-ssary for the exercise of normal parlia-mentary power) and military (black-mail of civil war) which the tradition-al type of party will refuse to take.

The seiiure of power can only re-suIt from a revolutionary process deve-loping from the periphery towards thecentre. The State cannot be conque-red by confiscation, peaceful Or not,of its "levers of command'" whichcontinue to be intact. Its conquest,will result from its disaggregation andconsequent paralysis -at the emergenceof self-organised popular power in thefactories, administration, 'public ser-vices, communes, cities and regions.It is the seizure of power at the levelof centres of decision and productionwithin the reach of the regroupedworkers which by draining the bour-geois State of its substanc.e, will final-ly break up its ,resistance. The revo-lution today, like that of 1917, willdepend for its beginning on the initia-tive of the people, on the exercise of"double power" by the committeesOf action (o,r sov~e~s) of s~rik.tlrs,students and communes.

Thus, the action of the revolutionaryparty of the new type will not consistof militants disciplined and led by acentral apparatus in their daily acti-vities but of local conditions, ofjudgment and initiative of their ownin functions in local conditions, ofsustaining and animating discussionin free assemblies, of self-administra-tion and self-determination, taking upin their own hands the conditions ofcollective existence.

The central apparatus of the partydoes not thus become slJ:Perfluousbutits rol~ is reduced to coordinating

ary and political alliance which hadbeen entereq into by the CPF and theFGDS; it did not want to furnish thelatter with any pretext for castingdoubts about its respectability, its feel-ing for legality and order, its refusalof revolutionary method and revolu-tion itself, its loyalism as future part-ners of a reformist government. Hadthe communists appeared as theprincip'al force of the movementtheir future reformist partners mighthave recoiled with fear before an un-equal alliance, throwing into isolationa CPF which had become disturbingbecause of its strength.

Thus to reassure the future part-ners of a bourgeois government theCPF put itself in many respects be-hind them and denounced and vitupe-rated up to May 26 (the date whenM. Garaudy in the name of the Polit-buro made a vain attempt to rectifythe course) against the vanguard, in-tellectual Or not, with a Stalinist bru-tality and crudity. On numerous oc-casions the CPF showed that it couldemploy Stalinist terror in the serviceof a conservative line and, for defen-ding this, prevent the freedom of as-sembly, speech and the p'ress, put thestudents at the hands of the police(at Lyon) and approve the deci-sion (considered unwise even bythe Gaullist circle) of the police disal-lowing, fOr the first time, Cohn-Benditfrom entering French territory.

Thus to save the prospects of a re-formist policy in future the CPF spur-ned the present chances of a socialistrev,olution. ~

Working according to a two-year-old analysis which foresaw parliamen-tary emergence of the CPF, the naturaldeath of the Fifth Republic and order-ly transition to the Sixth, and associa-tion of the communists in a govern-ment of limited and progressive re-forms, the CPF refused to exploit thecrisis of May. It refused to thinkabout the possibility of this crisis(keeping a distance from thestudent insurrection) then, of thereality of the crisis (driving themtowards negotiations with a mori-bund regime); and finally, of thepotentiality of the crisis-that is, the

SBPTEMBER 28/ 196~19

in Cuba 57 per cent of the papulatianwere urban of.wham 40 per cent livedin Havana Province alone. Forty-twa per cent of the tatal labour farcein Cuba were in agriculture, of whom70 per cent were workers in the hugeand concentrated landed estates knawnas latifufbdia.1 Roughly 8 per cent ofthe farmers owned 71.1 per cent ofthe land while 39 per cent owned.only 3.3 per cent of the land.2 Asone of the leaders of the Revolutianrecently pointed aut,H unlike the situa-tian in most of the former colanialand dependent countries. and alsa inthe countries of Eastern Europe, inCuba nearly two-thirds of the laRdwas not tilled by traditianal 'peasant'methads. The big U.S. sugar comll)lani-es and their local partners squeezed aufthe small farmers and embarked onlarge-scale cane grawing with hiredlabour at starvation wages. The socialstructure of the Cuban cauntrysidewas characterized by a vast mass ofagricultural labourers and a relativelysmall number of peasants. The agra-rian structure had another interestingfeature. Since the agricultural labour-ers had .only seasanal emplayment fora shart periad during the year theysettled in the vicinity of urban areas inthe hope of getting occasianal emplay-ment. This was facilitated by thesmallness of the country itself. Sincethey were thus cancentrated in the ur-ban areas and worked occasianally inhandicrafts, services, warkshops andeven in factaries they acquired many.of the features of the industrial prale-tariat.

The latifundia nat only daminatedthe rural saciety but also cantralledthe tatal economy .of Cuba by the veryfact that the economy of Cuba wasbased on the valume and value of thesugar crop. Sugar accounted far 80to 90 per cent .of all Cuba's expartsand .one-third af the country's nationalincame.4 The extent of Cuba's depen-dence an fareign capital was alsa very

IWhat was the national setting .of the

Cuban Revalutian? Cuba was anunder-devel~ed cauntry with a ty-pically semi-colanial ecanamic andpalitical structu~e, but at the sametime different fram other under-deve-laped cauntries in some important res-peets. Accarding t.o the 195 3 census

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

The CubansMONITOR

El deber de todo revolucionario es hacer La revolucion.

THE Cuban Revalutian has had asingularly unfartunate publicity

in India. Cuba's distance fram India,geagraphically as well as cultural1y,has undaubtedly cantributed to this.But there are deeper reasans. TheIndian ruling class wha awns and can-trals mast .of the publicity media daesnat certainly feel camfartable at thesight .of a tiny island canstantly defy-ing U.S. imperialism at its very door-step-that is defying the very paweran which this class increasingly ge-pends far its awn survival. As re-gards the sa-called "left" .or even the"communists", it must be painted autthat while paying lip service to. Cubafar its anti-imperialist stand-as amatter af ritual-these bureaucratic,manual-reacting, parliamentary creti-nists-whether af-the 'right' ar af the'left' variety-are almast .organicallyincapable of understanding the signifi-cance af this Revalutian.

The result af all this has been thatour peaple are very vaguely-and dis-tartedly-infarmedi abaut this greatevent which, we must remember, can-stitutes the first seriaus breach on theimperialist frant in Latin America andthus affers tremendous encauragementto. the enslaved peaple af that vastcantinent in their fight far liberationagainst U.S. imperialism and its nativelackeys.- We are not attempting here any-thing like a systematic histary af theCuban Revalution. We are rathertau ching upan some of its most signi-ficant aspects that might interest thereaders in India.ft,.,B~~~~J4"

for over 75 years

20

For

SOOTHI G RELIEFfrom

ACHES, PAINSand

COLDS & COUGHSUse

take back by any means a large partaf what they are farced to. cancede.The ecanamic palicy .of the regimehas become nan-viable. No. gavern-ment, even if it is "papular," will beable in the caming years to. functian incanfarmity with the internal lagic .ofFrench capitalism which is natariausfar its rigidity and narrawness .of themargin af cancessians.

The French warking class will thenbe led ta questian mare and mare can-sciausly a system which has just neutra-lised its limited gains, and the frame-wark af which can neither be safe-guarded nar a fartiari increased.Thausands af yaung and new mili-tant!>, mare radical than their elders,have just emerged to. discaver theirvocatian. Hundreds af thausandshave been :paliticalised and have C1is-cavered lfields af passibility whase ex-tent was hitherto. unsuspected. Jast-ling with their elders if required, theywill cantinue the battle .or rebegin itan the next accasian. The last in-surrectian af May was a beginning.

21

mentianed earlier.7 The paint is thatthe averwhelming majarity af theagricultural warkers who. autnumberedthe peasants in Cuba's cauntrysideand who. at the same time acquiredmany af the features af the industrialpraletariat came to. see the salutian to.their prablems nat in an agrarian re-farm which wauld give them land andmake them small agricultural produ-cers, but in a revalution which wauldguarantee them steady wark and high-er standard af living as warkers. Theexistence af [atifundia, mareaver, ape-rated alang caiP<italist lines andemplaying hired warkers, facilitatedthe direct transfer to. the State af largetracts. The State awnership of landwas effected in twa stages. The firstAgrarian Refo.rm Law passed in May,1959, set a 400-hectare limit an hald-ings by individuals ar graups of awn-ers. This first refarm law by expra-priating the sugar-cane and cattle-rais-ing [atifundia was the first direct blawagainst the interests af foreign inves-tars and their native allies. Thesecand Agrarian Refarm Law af Octa-'ber, 1963, finally abalished ~hateverremained af big estates by fixing thelandholding at 67 hectares. By thisact af natianalizatian the secand re-farm removed fram the land theremaining 10,000 members af therural baurgeaisie and large landawn-ers. As a result af these reforms 70per cent af the land became Statepraperty.

As regards the no.n-agrarian sectorthe Revalutianary Governmeut dec-reed in August, 1960, the nationaliza-tian af the property and gaods afnatural ar juridic U.S. citizens. Thiswas in reply to. the wave of canstantecanamic aggressian af U.S. imperia-lism which culminated in the suppres-sian of Cuba's sugar quata. Thismeasure transferred to. the State allthe huge manapalies in the fields aflP'ublic services, petraleum and sugar.As a camplement Cuba also. natiana-lized all U.S. banks which, as instru-ments af financial penetration, wereape rating in the cOuntry. Revolu-tionary impulse did not stap there andin October af the same year, in theface of the growing belLigerent atti-tude af the native industrial and im-

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can say that in essence the revalutianhad a national democratic characterat the initial stage. Later, in 1960,Ernesta 'Che' Guevara declared thatthe revalutian was fallawing the basicMarxist-Leninist laws. The first clearstatement abaut the socialist characteraf the revalutian was made by FidelCastro in his May Day speech in 1961and later in greater detail in his De-cember 2, 1961 speech. The latteris a remarkable dacument where Fi-del makes a self-critical analysis andfinally praclaims "I shall be a Marxist-Leninist to. the end af my life". Wemay mentian in passing that the dacu-ment in questian is an excellent ex-!position of the essentials af histaricalmaterialism.

The TestNaw, we knaw that the mere pro-

fession af sacialism by the leaders afa cauntry daes nat make the cauntryin questian sacialist. This must beabjectively demonstrated in practice.Haw daes Cuba fare in this test? Theanswer to. this questian is vital special-ly taday when a whale charus IS ris-ing fram the right as well as the Sa-called 'left' af the internatianal work-ing-class movement dubbing the Cu-ban leadership as petty baurgeois,adventurist and anarchist and doubt-ing the sacialist character of theCuban regime.

Accarding to. the Marxists a societyis sacialist if it fulfils twa essentialcanditions-( I) the warking classthrough its revalutianary vanguardmust hald the State power and (2)the means af praductian must be, atleast predaminantly, callectively own-ed.

To. take the secand paint first, thecollectivizatian of the means of pra-ductiDn in Cuba practically began withthe recavery of assets misapprapriatedby elements af the farmer regime andwith the expropriatian of the giantlandhaldings under the Agrarian Re-farm Law passed in 1959. It shauldbe painted aut that unlike in anyather existing sacialist country thecallectivizatian af land in Cuba taak apredominantly State character. It fal-lows basically fram the distinct natureaf Cuba's agrarian structure that we

IIAt the initial stage af the revalutian

the leaders were nDt very arti-culate about the character o.f the' reva-lutian. The first camprehensive pali-tical pragramme af the revalutiDn wascantained in the Declaration of theSierra ,Maestra dated July 12, 1957.Twa basic tasks were set fo.rth in thispragramme--camplete natianal inde-pendence and camprehensive dema-cratic reforms through the restaratianaf the constitutian of 1940. Thus we

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

large. Fareign investments fundamen-tally cantralled the sugar industry, therailways, the banking system, part ofthe whalesale cammerce, same bran-ches af the manufacturing industryand the mining industry. U.S. capitalhad af course the lion's share in fare-ign investment. Ninety per cent ofthe capital in the telephane and elec-tric· services, 50 per cent in railways,40 per cent in raw sugar [plfaductionwere in U.S. hands. One quarter afthe tatal bank dep'asits were in theCuban branches af the U.S. banks.U.S. capital awned mast af the cattleranches, the major taurist facilitiesand, tagether with British capital,almast the entire ail business. Cubaranked third in Latin America, afterVenezuela and Brazil, in 1953, in thevalue af direct U.S. investments.5

As to the palitical regime-theGavernment of Batista-it was an in-credibly carrupt dictato.rship exercis-ing unheard af terrar against even themildest oppasition. [Befare he was

. depased Batista had murdered an esti-mated 20,000 Cuban citizens, accard-ing to. lfigures published by the Revalu-tianary Government]. Mareaver, fo.rall practical pUflpases, the BatistaGavernment was a satellite af U.S. im-perialism. As ane campetent Ameri-can reparter wrate, "Histary willprove that the dictatar did have U.S.suppart .... The U.S. ambassadarswere friendly to. Batista and apenly so..The U.S. saId Batista the arms thatpermitted him to. stay in pawer".G

Such, then, was the setting in whichthe revalutian brake in Cuba. Strictlyspeaking, it began with the assault anMoncada in 1953 and ended in cam-plete viCtDry six years later.

2(

porting bourgeoisie, whicu took afrankly pro-imperialist and counter-revolutionary stand, the Governmentdecreed the nationalization of thecountry's principal industries, the rail-road companies, department stores etc.Thus the State sector controlled allthe basic aspects of the economy, de-finitely wiping out the political andeconomic power of imperialism andthe native exploiting classes.8 Cubarecently completed the cycle of na-tionalization by implementing themeasures of nationalization outlinedby Fidel. in his March I3 speech ofthis year. Practically it means thatall centres of industrial production,commerce, services, communication,education, culture and all mass mediaof information came under the owner-ship of the proletarian State. In otherwords, as a recent Granma editorialpointed out, with the exception of 30per cent of the land! all national wealthof Cuba falls under a sole form ofownership : State property. Cuba hasthus become the socialist countrywith the highest percentage of Stateproperty.

State CharacterAs regards the· State character it

goes without saying that it is proleta-rian, as it is ~idedJ by the CommunistParty on behalf of the Cuban workingclass. Those who accuse its leader-ship of being petty bourgeois forgetthat the Marxist, proletarian characterof a leadership is not proved or dis-proved by [eference to the classorigins of the leaders but by referenceto their potitics and their ideology.

One important point must be em-phasized. From the mere fact that theCommunist Party holds political powerit does not automatically follow thatthe working class is holding political:power. The working class can bereally said to hold the State poweronly when two basic conditions arefulfilled; lfirst, the Party as the van-guard! of the toiling masses must con-stantly practise the mass line-"fromthe masses to the masses", and, secon-dly, the toiling masses themselves mustconstantly participate-and in themost active way-in the day-to~daypolitical and economic administration

22

FRONTIER

of the country. It is notorious thatin the majority of the socialist coun-tries, in the lPost-Lenin era, the van-guard role of the Party as well as theworking class hold on State powerwere interpreted much too mechani-cally, and! the masses were not giventhe feal power to actively participatein tile affairs of . the State, includingthe [ight to criticize and purge theParty functionaries - Lenin's cleardirectives to the contrary notwithstan-ding. In Cuba the leadership hastaken the right direction towards im-plementing proletarian democracythough it will take a long time to wincomplete victory in the battIe. Tostart with, there is in Cuba consider-able direct democracy. Fidel and otherleaders move about the island frequ-ently and discuss important 'policymatters directly with the . masses.9Secondly, the Party and the tradeunions themselves are subject to directmass control. As regards' the Party,the members are elected by the opengeneral assemblies of workers andmust explain their activities to theseassemblies.1o. As regards the tradeunions, they are not supposed, inCuba, to be the simple instrumentsof further production but they mustequally express and fight for all thematel.)ial andfi'Piritual needs of theworkers. After being subjected tobureaucratic practices in its leadershi;pfor a number of years the central orga-nisation of the Cuban Trade Unions(CTC), in its Twelfth Congress in1966, for the lfirst time, elected thedelegates without the least interferenceby the Party and elected the leadershipthat enjoys, also for the first time,complete confidence of the workers.

To 'defeat bureaucracy which Fidelconsiders to be no less perniciousthan imperialismll the Cubans countprimarily, on the complete eli-mination of the difference betweenmanual and mental labour andon the development of politicalwork, including political education,by mass organizations.12 Closing theTwelfth Congress of the CTC, Fidelsaid that "the day will come whenthere will be no professional politici-ans, when each citizen will be a poli-tician. We want to reach a society

where the participation of the masseswill be the greatest and the most com-plete".

IIIThe Cuban Revolution like all ge-

nuine [evolutions in the imperialistera has demonstrated some universaland some particular truths. The mostimportant universal truths that it hasconfirmed are: (I) the revolution isled by a vanguard based on worker-peasant alliance. The vanguard atfirst begins as a minority movement.Later through struggle and revolu-tionary practice it gains the confidenceand adherence of the immense majo-rity. (2) Revolution fundamentallyalters property relations. (3) The re-volutionaries set up their own Stateafter smashing the old military bure-aucratic State machine. (4) Given thecorrect leadership the national demo-cratic stage grows into socialist stage,thus proving the uninterrupted charac-ter of the revolution. (5) Revolutionis successful only when the vanguardcreatively applies revolutionary prin-ciples to the concrete conditions of thecountry without any preconceivednotions.

Particular TruthsIts particular truths are: ( I) the

,revolution that later took a socialistcharacter was not led: by those whowere supposed to lead it, i.e. the estab-lished Communist Party whose leader-ship rather betrayed it. (2) InitiallyMarxism-Leninism was not proclaim-ed as the official creed and, as Fidellater pointed out, the leadership learntMarxism-Leninism much less frombooks and much more from revolu-tionary combat. (3) The revolutionproved that if the established Com-munist Party does not do its duty andlead the revolution there will be honestrevolutionaries inside and outside theParty who will uphold the red: bannerand form the real communist vanguardto lead the revolution. "Who willmake the revolution in Latin Ameri-ca ? Who?", asks Fidel, and answers,"the people, the revolutionaries withor without the Party" [i.e. the estab-lished Party] . Here the particulattruth in fact merges with the universal

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

".

23

cle·ar. They point out that, thoughsince 1945 there has been no globalwar, local wars, inspired by the im-perialists, have continued. Writingagainst the opportunist interpretationof the Leninist principle of 'peacefulco-existence' the organ of the CC ofCP '(Cuba) came out with the follow-ing in one of its editorials in May,1966, "we do not accept peaceful co-existence as a policy applicable onlyto the powefful States while imperiali-sm coulClarrogate to itself the right tomake war whenever it wanted' to makeit against any small country. Evenless we understand by this principle-the Yugoslav practice of acting asthe instrument of the policy of theU.S. imperialists".1£ Raul Roa, speak-ing before the United Nations Gene-ral Assembly on behalf of the Cubandelegation on October 18, J 966, dis-cussed! the conditions for a lastingpeace in the world. "The Cubandelegation", he pointed out, "feelsthat a clear distinction must be madebetween those who wield wea-pons inorder to attack and those who do sowith the purpose of repelling aggres-sion, Today in many places the worldover men and! women bear arms inorder to attain independence or todefend it. In the near future theirranks will be increased: by those whowill be obliged to follow the sameroad. The Cuban people and theirRevolutionary Government considerthis struggle sacred and! support itwithout reservation. The weaponsfired against imperialism and its satel-lites are the most important contribu-tion to the struggle to achieve truepeace".19 'Che' was stilI more clear."Since imperialists", he wrote in hislast testament, "blackmail humanity bythreatening it with war, the wise re-action is not to fear war. The generaltactics of the people should be tolaunch a constant and firm attack onall fronts where the confrontation istaking place".

Thirdly, we must also mentionCuba's stand on another vital ques-tion-the question . of incentives insocialism. The problem of incentivesin socialism is part of a much vasterproblem that every revolutionary lea-dership faces after the s~izure of poli-

struggle is the only form of armedstruggle that the Cuban leadership re-cognizes. "By stressing the role ofthe guerillas as the immediate task inall those countries where true condi-tions exist", says Fidel, "we do notdiscard: other forms of revolutionaryarmed struggle. The revolutionarymovement must be ready to take ad-vantage of, and support, any expres-sion of struggle that may arise, thatmay develop Or that may strengthenthe position of the revolutionaries".15Does the Cuban leadership emphasizethe purely military aspect at the ex-pense of the political aspect of thestruggle? It does not. Fidel clearlypointed out that the guerilla move-ment "cannot exist without politicaldirection". "We do not 'deny", headded, "the role of the leading orga-nizations, we do not deny the role ofpolitical organizations. The guerillais organized by a political movement,by a political organization".16 Whatthe Cuban leadership emphasizes isthat political and military commandmust be unified and that the guerillain the countryside must not be direct-ed by the so-called "P9Iitical" leader-ship from the cities. The GeneralDeclaration of the First OLAS confe-rence, in the drafting of which theCuban delegation played a key role,put the whole thing succintIy thus :"The conditions for revolution whichexist in Latin America are r~peated inother underdeveloped countries ofAsia and Africa.. These conditionsindicate that the development of revo-lution is possible. Within the con-text of the Latin American revolu-tionary struggle these conditions re-quire that the task be carried out bya bold, decided and valiant revolu-tionary vanguard, forged in people'swar and closely related! to the peasantand proletarian masses, one whichcombining both political and militaryleadership can and must make itselfthe core of political, ideological andrevolutionary action".17 The fourtharticle of its Proclamation added that"the principles of Marxism-Leninismguide the movement of Latin Ame-rica".

On the question of war and peacethe Cuban lead'ership is also equally

truth. In fact one of the importantlessons of the Cuban Revolution is theobjective re-affirmation of the uni-versal truth that there is no necessaryequivalence between the revolutionaryvanguard and the Party simply be-cause the latter calls itself a commu-'nist party .. This equivalence has gotto be established every momentthrough [evolutionary practice.

IVThe socialist character of the Cuban

regime and the Marxist-Leninistcharacter of its leadership can furtherbe seen in the stand the latter hastaken on the fundamen~al questionsfacing the international working classmovement at the present moment.

On the question of the character oftransition from capita~ism to socialismwhich ultimately boils down to thequestion of the seizure of State powerby the working class, the Cuban lea-dersh)uY 'upholds the uniVe!fsal truthof Marxism-Leninism, that is, theworking class can capture power onlyby smashing the bureaucratic militaryState apparatus of the bourgeoisie andthe landlords, that is, by opposingcounter-revolutionary violence. Ans-wering the Yugoslav leadership, theorgan of the CC of the CommunistParty of Cuba wrote, "Everycommunist knows that violenceis the midwife of historyand that armed insurrection is thehighest form of class struggle. Onewho ignores it or pretends to hide itis not a communist".13 Similarly Fidel,while addressing the delegates to thefirst OLAS conference, said, "Thosewho believe that they are going towin against the im;perialists in elec-tions are just plain naive, and thosewho believe that the day will comewhen they will take over through elec-tions are even mOre naive ... Any per-sons in Latin America who assert thatthey will come to power peacefully aredeceiving the masses".14 This meansthat, in the context of the mightymilitary machine of the bourgeios-landlord: State backed everywhere byU.S. imperialism, the people have towage, at least in the initial stage, pro-tracted armed guerilla warfare. Itdoes not of course mean that guerilla

FRONTIER

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

THE BANK FOR ALL BIG AND SMALL

familiarise himself with productionand its instruments. Nobody shouldaccomplish either a purely intellectualor a purely manual work. Labourmust become a pleasure and a moralneed."23 In this regard interesting ex-

'1Jeriments are going on in some re-gions of Cuba. For 'example, in theIsle of Pines thousands of young volu-nteers have gone out from Havana andare trying to transform totally what wasonce a desert. They devote four hoursto study and six hours to manual lab-Our everyday. The primary necessi-ties of life-food, clothing and shelter-they get free. Their remunerationis independent of the quantity oflabour they furnish and the degreeof their qualification. Their remune-ration is a funct~on of their needs.24Similarly, at Pinares de Mayari thou-sands of young people-most of themgirls-are simultaneously studyingand working on a voluntary basis.Board, lodging and clothing are freefor them and their wages are independ-ent of their work.2u In a more gene-

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ship, while admitting the importanceof material incentives for some timeto come, considers that the act ofemphasizing material incentives insocialism and the formation of thenew, socialist man are incompatible,because "we do not ar,rive at com-munism by following the capitalistroad".21 "We do not", wrote 'Che'"deny the objective necessity of mate-rial incentive but we are absolutelyagainst its use as a fundamental lever.It is our opinion that in economicsthis lever quickly takes on an autono-mous character and goes on to assertits :power upon the relations betweenmen. Let us not forget that it stemsfrom capitalism and is destined to dieout with socialism". 22

Brain and BrawnAs regards the elimination of the

differences between mental and manu-al labour Fidel said, "we must at thesame time imI-art theoretical andpractical education. Everybody fromthe stage of the primary school must

.,

tical power by the working class-how to ensure that the new, socialistregime shall not revert to capitalismbut shall continue to march forwardtowards communism. The stiffest re-sistance to this onward march is offer-ed by the ideas, habits, customs andtraditions, in a word the entire worldoutlook that the new society inheritsfrom the old. The point is how tomake the man of tomorrow out of theman of yesterday-as 'Che' wonder-fully put it in his now wen-knownpamphlet, Sociali.sm (lnd Man in Cuba.After the seizure of State power theproletariat must immediately beginto attack "the Moncada of old ideas,of old selfish sentiments, of old habitsof thought and conception, of old man-ners of resolving problems".2o Thetwo most important things that theCuban leadership emphasizes in thisconnection are, first, the minimisationof the role of material incentives insocialism and, second, the eliminationof the difference between manual andmental labou'r. The Cuban leader-

24

ral way it should be pointed out thatfor the country as a whole and forall workers great importance is atta-ched to the free services that are in-creasing in number, for the simple butprofoundl reason that making servicesfree for the people is much more de-Isilrable than increasing their wages;the first is the source of collective con-sumption while the second is thesource of individual consumption. Thesystem of socialist emulation in Cubais summed up by one of its leaders inthree points :

First, it is a collectfve movement sothat individualism will not rear itshead.

Second, the system is based onmoral incentives.

Third, it seeks to improve produc-tion and at the same time to streng-then revolutionary consciousness.26

"TropicaL Titoism"Finally, a great lesson of the Cuban

Revolution is the lesson of proletarianinternationalism. In an interview withK. S. Karol, already referred to above,Fidel pointed out that the Cubans werenot trying to transform their islandinto a small paradise by being disin-terested in the events of other coun-tries. They would never constructsome sort of a 'national communism'Fidel added that if the imperialiststhought that he was going to practise"tropical Titoism' they were gravelymistaken. It was the bounden duty' ofa socialist State to he~p .actively-andnot simply verbally-all revolution-ary and anti-imperalist struggles any-where in the world as it was equallya crime for it to help technically, 'fin-ancially or militarily a regime that wasrepressing popular movements. It isthis intransigent internationalist spiritwhich prompts the Cuban leadershipto hail the revolutionary heroism ofDouglas Bravo (Venezuela), CesarMontes (Guatemala) and others whoby defying the petrified, bureaucratiz-ed, quotation-mongering leadership ofthe established communist parties areleading the Latin American peoplein the armed revolutionary struggleagainst U.S. imperialism and its hen-chmen. It is the same uncompromis-ing &pirit of internationalism which

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

FRONTIER

prompts Fidel to condemn those socia-list States that help the Latin Ameri-can ohgarchies technically and finan-cially. "If internationalism exists", hesaid, "if solidarity is a word worthy ofrespect the least we can expect of anyState of the socialist camp is that itrefrains from giving any 'financial ortechnical aid to these regimes".27 Itis only a genuine sense of proletarianinternationalism that can make theCuban leadership say, "when we say'homeland' we refer not to theCubans' homeland, but rather to theCuban Revolution's homeland. Andwhen we speak of the Cuban Revolu-tion, we are speaking of the LatinAmerican Revolution. And when wespeak of Latin American Revolutionwe are speaking of revolution on aworldwide scale, the revolution of the'peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe".28Again, who can be a greater proleta-rian internationalist than 'Che' whocould write in his last testament, "Todie under the flag of Vietnam, of Vene-zuela, of Guatemala, of Laos, of Gui-nea, of Colombia, of Bolivia, of Brazilwould be equally glorious and desira-ble for an American, an Asian, anAfrican, even a European. . .. Eachnation liberated is a phase won in thebattle for the liberation of one's owncountry".

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1 U.S. Department of Commerce-Investment in Cuba (1956)-Tables8, 88, 89. .

2 See, G. Blacksten-Fidelismo andits Origins in Tomasek (ed.)-

. Latin American Politics (N.Y.1966), p. 3,65.

3 C. R. Rodriguez-The Cuban Revo-lution and the Peasantry (1966).

4 International. Bank for Reconstruc-tion and Development-Report onCuba (1951). p. 45.

5 See, Scheer and Zeitlin-Cuba(Penguin, 1964), p. 31.

6 H. Mathews in New York Times of4. 1. 1959.

7 See, C. R. Rcidriguez-op.cit.8 See the Report of the Cuban dele-

gation to the 12th session of theEconomic Commission for LatinAmerica, May, 1967.

9 Almost all serious foreign observerstestify to this. See, for example,

a K. S. Karol in Nouvel Obser-vateur, No. 148 .and following(1967) .

b. M. Bosquet-Ibid, No. 171 and'following (1968).

c. D. Alexander in Les TempsModernes, Feb. and March,1967.

d. J. Vallier-Ibid, March, 1968.10 Armando Hart, member of the CC

of CPC in an iinterview wtih K.S. Karol-op.cit., 150 (1967).

11 Speech of 2. 2. 1965.12 See Vallier-op.cit. of. Armando

Hart, "Bureaucratism and profes-sionalism are the symptoms of thesame malady: lack of faith in themasses' [in a speech of 7. 2. 1967].

13 See the four editorials of Granma .in its weekly edition of 15. 4. 1966.

14 Closing speech of 10, 8. 1967.15 Ibid. Our italics.16 Ibid. Our italics.17 Our italics.18 See Granma-ed.cit.19 Our italics.20 Fidel "Castro-Speech of July 26,

1967.21 Fidel Castro-Speech of 28. 11..1966.

Our italics.22 The Budgetary System of Financing

as given in Granma in its weeklyedition of 3. 12. 1967.

23 Interview with M.· Bosquet-op.cit.,172, 1968.

24 See Vallier's article on the CubanEconomy in Les Temps Modernes,March, 1968.

25 See K. S.. Karol-op.cit., 148, 196726 Miguel Martin, Gener<.ll Secretary

of the Central Organization ofCuban Trade Unions in his article,The Developmenll of ProletarfanConsciousness - Granma (Weeklyedition of 1. 10. 1967).

27 Closing speech at the First OLASConference (10. 8. 1967).

28 Prosecutor's speech before the Re-.lutionary Tribunal trying AniballEscalante and 36 o'bhers (Febru-ary, 1967).

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u.s. Economic Policy In EasternAsia And Oceania

share of these markets, have resultedin ma,rket losses for the United King-dom, West Germany, other Western-Euro1pean countries, and Japan.

U.S. exporters lost percentage sharesof some o~ their markets in Asia from1958 to 1965. In spite of a decreasein the percentage control of somemarkets, the U.S. recorded dollargains. Thus for example, the, U.S.share of the Philippines market slip-ped from 56% in 1958 to 45 % in1965. Nevertheless, the dollar amountof U.S. exports to the Philippinesincreased from $ 274.6 million to$ 348.7 millon during this period. Theintensification of the imperial strugglefor markets in Asia is clearly register-ed. Both West Germany and Japanhave made some inroads into theseU.S. markets, and other Western Eu-ropean countries have also exhibited atendency to export more to these areasas their abilities to produce commodi-ties outstrip the abilities of their peo-ple to :purchase.

The U.S. also needs the raw mate-rials and produce which' the Asiancountries supply. 'Of the total worldoutput, Asia and 'Oceania supply thefollowing percentages of irreplaceablematerials and produce:

1514301028~272628~2717~1717~19181717~16~1615

1416,2610271925262313188

14151718141516

Country 1958 1965

Phili:ppines 530/0 350/0South Vietnam 24 45South Korea 63 41Pakistan 28 35Taiwan 38 32Indonesia 16 33Laos 13 29New Zealand 7 12Cambodia 910 3%Hong Kong 10 11Japan 35 29Malaysia 2 5Singapore 3 5Thailand 18 19Australia 13 23

27

The capitalist nations are in stiffcompetition to import these importantmaterials and produce and the U.S.is the dominant importer in manycases. an the one hand, the U.S.takes a substantial percentage of thetotal exports from these Asian nations.an the other hand, these countriesplace great reliance on the U.S. toprovide foreign exchange (dollars orcredits) with which they can importgoods from the United States. Inmost cases, the percentage of thetotal Asian exports absorbed by theU.S. between 1958 and 1965 increasedas can be seen in the following chart:

U.S. ABSaRPTIaN 'OFTaTAL EXPORTS FRaM

CottonZinc orePetroleum, crudeHempPalm oilPyritesMillet & SorghumTobaccoFuel oilsChromium orePlastics & resinsMicaManmade fibresSugar, rawLead oreKeroseneCotton seedTungsten concentrates~1964.

980/089869275~5857554836353836

950/0878592755149555943242126

Percent of 'worldproduction

1958 1965

Produce

AbacaCopraJute & Allied FibresRubber, naturalTeaDatesTin concentratesRiceWool, greasySesame seedsPeanutsTalcTitanium concentrates

THE Far East and 'Oceania are, composed of the land masses of

Australia, Cambodia, Hong Kong,lndonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malay-sia, New Zealand, the Philippines" theRyukyu Islands, Singapore, Vietnam(South), taiwan, and Thailand. Gra-dually, all these countries have movedinto the U.S. dollar area and accountfor over one.Jfifth of total U.S. salesabroad; the sales trend has beensirongly upward. U.S. ex:ports in-creased by 11% in 1964 and another7% in 1965. In 1966, these salesexceeded $ 5 billion for the first time.Shipments to the area, including spe-cial military material, totalled $ 5,351million, a rise of 12% over 1965.Two-thirds of the countries in thisregion registered all-time highs as im-porters of u.S.-produced goods. Thelargest purchases were made by Japan,Korea, Hong Kong, South Vietnam,Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia,Singapore, the Ryukyu Islands, Laos,and Cambodia. Reduced buying wasevident on the :part of the Philippines,Australia, and New Zealand. Never-theless, by any measure the Far Eastand 'Oceania are part of the dollararea. Not only does the U.S. relyheavily on this area to export hercommodities, but 1967 exports wereestimated as having ex:panded stillfurther.

The United States has made sub-stantial inroads into the Asian marketssince 1957. In the eight-year period,1958-1965, U.S. exports to Japanrose from 240/0 to 30% of the totalimports of that country. During thesame period, U.S. exports increasedas a percentage of total imports of thefollowing nations: Republic of Korea(i.e., South Korea) from 170/0 to34 % ; Hong Kong from 12% to28%; Taiwan from 70/0 to 22%;Malaysian States from 11 % to 180/0,and Australia from 60/0 to 110/0. TheseU.S. trade inroads, capturing a larger

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

./

hI

U.S. DIRECT INVESTMENTS INASIA & OCEANIA BY MAJOR

INDUSTRIES

(Book values in millions of dollars)Year All industries Mining & Petro- Manufac- Public

Smelting leum turing Utilities

Thus it should surprise no one thatthe capitalist countries are :presentlyadvocating the elimination of theirrespective tariffs on the importationof manufactured goods from Asia inorder to benefit from the Ifelativelylower wages :paid to Asians. A re-cent statement on national policy bythe Committee for Economic Develop-ment lists recommendations for lower-ing the capitalist nations' tariffs "bas-ed on the conviction that a better dis-tribution of world resources and amore rational uttlization of labour arein the general interest." Furthermore,assures this organization, "the high-in-come' countries should be ready to im-port manufactures from the low in-come countries, and a policy seriouslydesigned to help the growth of thesecountries must create the conditionsfor the expansion of such imports".By no accident, most of the capitalistnations sponsored this CED opinion,

Trade Otherus-

tries170 155199 171225 187253 203

37405561

354430556673

ving lucrative for American ventures,In Indonesia, recorded direct U.S.

investments were $160 million in 1962and $167 million in 1963. All of thesefunds were invested in manufacturing,trade, and other industries. In 1967,the U.S. envisioned considerableimprovement in the investment clima-te in response to favourable invest-ment laws, an investment guaranteeagreement with the U.S., and a govern-mental decision to return to formerowners the enterprises previously "na-tionalized." Major U.S. oil'firms, whichhad attempted to continue operationsduring the :period of Indonesian "na-tionalization," have thus been fully re-habilitated. Apparently, all of thesenew rules and Governmental policieshave whetted the profit appetite of

Eastern petroleum, the investment inmanufacturing, trade, and other indus-tries exhibited a steady rise. This isillustrated in the following table:

A country by-country examinationof U.S. investments in Asia reveals tbedegree to which the American com-Ipanies are <lominating most of' theeconomies in this part of the "FreeWorld."

Let us start with Hong Kong. Al-though there is no available data onthe total of foreign ~nvestments orU.S. investments in Hong Kong, manyU.S. companies are active in manu-facturing, import and distribution,banking and insurance. The HongKong Government welcomes all fore-ign investments and there is no restric-tion on the repatriation of profits; noris there any other Governmental res-triction on or interference with profit-taking. In all fields except heavy in-dustry, investment prospects are pro-

1,7551,9202,0542,384

29323437

2,5002,7933,1123,611

Export of U.S. CapitalThe export of U.S. capital to Asia

is designed to stimulate the produc-tion of manufactured and other com-modities and. to obtain raw materialsand :produce. From 1962 to 1965.U.S. direct investments in Asi~ increa-sed steadily. While the greatest con-centration of investmentwas in Middle-

and the research and policy committeedrawing it up included such notablesas G. Collado, the Executive Vice-President of Standard Oil Com:p,any(New Jersey) and Fred J. Borch, Pre-sident of General Electric Company.Both of these companies, to say noth-ing of the dozens of others hel:ping toshape the CED policy, have branchesall over the Third World.

196219631964196.5

FRONTIER

10111211115611111110895

•

* Longshoremen in Saigon receiveabout 87 cents a day after the kick-backto the cai_tacherons, Le. subcontractors.In the U.S., longshoremen make morethan three rimes that much an hour!Wages in manufacturing firms in Asiancountries are a fraction of those inthe United States.

(Source GATT, International Trade1965)

The new materials and manufactur-ed goods being exported from thesecountries have been made in a largepart by foreign-owned facilities utiliz-ing inex:pensive non-white labour.¥Manufactured or processed commodi-ties produced in these facilities are,of course, owned by the foreign firms.

PhilippinesSouth VietnamPakistanTaiwanHong KongThailandMalaysiaCambodia

INDEX OF DIVERSIFICATION OFEXPORT EARNINGS, 1964-65

(Index 1959-61 = 100)

But even in those cases where the per-centage decreased, the dollar amountof such exports increased in most in-stances.

Since these countries are dependentupon th~ U.S. for a large part of theirforeign exchange earnings, . it is im-portant to note the types of materials,produce and manufactures that areexported. By and large, in prioryears any growth in export earningscame from the exportation of "tradi-tional" commodities-raw materialsand produce. But the recent trendhas been a growth in export earningsfrom semi-manufactured and manufac-tured goods. This can be observedin the following index of diversifica-tion, which is com:puted by dividingthe growth of total export earnings bythe growth of export earnings fromtraditional commodities. Note thatthe figures above 100 indicate the ex-portation of non-traditional commo-dities.

28SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

Ij

ICONTAI

Branches:

City Office:

BURDWAN

Dist1'ibutors faT:

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Phone No. 33-1346

&

Registered Office:

Iran and Steel Merchants

Calcutta-7

I

Oil Engine driven pumping sets

RUSTON diesel engine and

BANKURA

20, Maharshi Debendra Road,

RUNGTA AGENCIESPRIV ATE LIMITED

5, Jatin Bagchi Raad, Calcutta-29

..Alkathene Pipe, machinery and ather

agricultural i~

Cambodia and LaosCambodia and Laas have limited

amaunts af U.S. private investment.Cambadia maintains cautiaus diplama-tic relatians with the U.S. Further-more, AID investment guarantees arenat available, and U.S. investors arenat venturing there. Up to. 1963,fareign investments were in French-awned rubber plantatians and werevalued at abaut $2 mi,llion. As farLaas, an AID investment guaranteeagreement between the U.S. and thatnatian was signed in December 1964.To. date, hawever, U.S. investments arenegligible Fareign investments arecanfined to. banking, tin mining andexpart;-import. Laaking to. the future,fareign investars are relying an thefact that there are absalutely no. res-trictians an ~the inflaw af capital arthe repatriatian ar prafits.

In the Ryukyu Islands tatal fareigninvestment thraugh June 30, 1966,was $19.7 millian, 55% af which wasfram the U.S. The Gavernment acti-vely encaurages fa reign investments.lThe majOlr industries where fo.reigninvestments are lacated are f~d pra-cessing, tabacco., textiles and apparel,fabricated metal manufactures andceramics. .

Thailand and Sauth Vietnam arenat exceptians in the I))attern of U.S.private investments in Asia. Althaughdirect private investments are relative-ly small, they are increasing in res-panse to. the explaitable' labaur andresaurces in these areas.

Let us consider Thailand lfirst. Tatalfareign investments (and assaciatedlaans) are estimated at clase to. $300millian, with the U.S. accaunting farabaut ane-third. U.S. future invest-ment praspects are likely: A U.S.-Thai all-risk fareign guarantee agree-ment is in effect. Also. in the wind isthe prabable U.S. ratificatian af an"Agreement for the A vaidance af Dou-ble Taxatian," and a new "Treaty afAmity and Econamic Relatians."

FRONTIER

specializing in fertilizers, textiles,Ipharmaceuticals, petraleum praducts,electranics, and canstructian. Taiwanlures private U.S. capital throughliberal tax incentives.

SEPTEMBER 26, J 966

many U.S. firms naw cansidering in-vesting in Indanesia.

In Malaysia, U.S. campanies are instiff campetitian with their Britishcaunterparts. While the U.K. is themajar investar, the U.S. share is re-carded as abaut $60 millian. Thisis divided into. mainly the ail industryand rubber and tin :praductian in WestMalaysia, and farest praducts in EastMalaysia. Althaugh there is no U.S.tax incentive agreement, there is aU.S. investment guarantee agreementin effect. This has resulted in an in-flux af capital, especially into. indus-tries where ather incentives are affer-ed.'

The Philippines has seen a metearicrise in U.S. direct investments, whichwent up steadily fram $375 millian in1962 to. $529 millian in 1965. Al-mast all af these investments were inmanufacturing, ather processing indus-tries, public utilities and trade facilities.Articles VI and VII af the "RevisedU.S.-Philippine Trade Agreement"(which expires in 1974) accards U.S.investars entry rights and natianaltreatment in all areas af enterprise.The recent spark af natianalist fervaur,cambined with the nan-existence afextensive publicized fareign incentivelaws will, perhaps, slaw the inflaw af.U.S. private capital. But, it must benated, there is no. system far the ap~proval far the inflaw af fareign capi-tal, and this makes it .even mare diffi-cult far Philippine natianalists to. ap-pose what is nat legally recarded.

In Singapare U.S. investments exce-ed $50 millian. Mast fareign capitalis placed in ail refining, flaur milling,

'and numerous light industries. Singa-pare has enticed U.S. capital thraugha Gavernment-maintained investmentpromatian centre in New Yark City.Also., the U.S. investment guaranteepragramme is applicable. Furthermare,American campanies praducing inSingapare far expart have been givenspecial incentives.

The U.S. investment climate inTaiwan is ane af the mast lucrativein the Far East. Of the tatal privatefareign investments (including asso.cia-ted laans) af $1 70 millian, $94 mil-lian emanates from the U.S. The U.S.investments are principally in factaries

a1

JpA

S

VietnamVietnam is a special case owing to

the aggressive United States war ma-chine operating there. Foreign invest-ments must be considered in the lightof the history of that struggling nation.French investments, for example, stillaccount for a large share of directforeign private investments. This isdue to the fact that the French beganinvesting in the early colonial period.They still own 14 large rubber planta-tions, 7 tea and coffee plantations, 4large electric pow~r plants, a tyre andtube factory, a beer and soft drinkfirm, the largest cigarette company, amotorcycle plant, a radio and clockassembly plant, and many other enter-prises. Other nationality groups withinvestments in South Vietnam includeItalians, Japanese, British, Indians,Chinese who have adopted Vietnamesecitizenship, and U.S. citizens. It isthis latter group which we shall exa-mine.

The United States Government hasheld out six basic incentives to privateU.S. investors in South Vietnam. Theycan be listed as: ( 1) A 'five-yearexemption from profit tax paymentsfor industrial and commercial enter-prises. (2) Duty-free importationinto South Vietnam of industrial ma-chinery and spare parts necessary forinvestment. (3) Non-discriminatorytreatment for all American enteflprisesinvesting in South Vietnam. (4)AID investment guarantees of 100%against any loss through war, insurrec-tion, expropriation, and currency in-convertibility. (5) An extended riskguarantee of up to 75% of the invest-ment against all risks, including normalbusiness risks. (6) Cooley Fund loans.made from a portion of those piasterscredited to the U.S. Government inpayment for U.S. surplus agricqlturalcommodities. Furthermore, presentVietnamese law does not require thatforeign investments include South Viet-namese investor-lparticipation, and thescarcity of private indigenous capitalhas resulted in the puppet Governmentencouraging as much foreign privateowneship as is' feasible.

These lures to !private U.S. capitalhave not gone wanting, although theamount of such investments is shroud-

30

FRONTIER

ed in secrecy. For example, the U.S. lending. For example, they have anGovernment reports that such invest- agreement with the U.S. Governmentments amount to approximately $5 whereby the latter places its Embassy,million and that the largest investments Agency for International Develop-are: $1 million in a ipaper mill, $300, ment, and military funds in the former.000 in dairy, $300,000 in a textile Then the two banks lend theseplant, about $2 million in oil storage funds to other. banks at about 40/0facilities, and $1.5 million in smaller interest·a year .. The U.S. Governmentinvestments. But the U.S. Gov- is the primary depositor in theseernment 'prefers, for obvious banks: Of total deposits of nearlyreasons, to ignore the opera- billion :piasters (official rate 118 pias-tions of many important business ven- ters=$1 U.S.) in each of these twotures in South Vietnam. For example, banks, about 80% are U.S. Govern-the PX branches in Vietnam are doing ment funds. When these funds area rousing business selling commodities lent out to other banks, the borrow-produced in the U.S., Japani and even ing banks re-lend up to 200% of theirin crupitalistic-oriented enterprises in deposits to commercial clients. One-South Vietnam. As troop concentra- half of the total deposits in those twotions have been increased, PX branches American banks are loaned in thisin Vietnam increased their mdnthly fashion, and the profit thereon am-sales from $6.9 million in January ounts to about $340,000 a yea (i.e.,1966 to $30 million in September 1 billion piasters Or nearl $8.51967. While the PXis not a private million loaned at 4 t a year).investment, its retail sales outlets are This is quite a lucrative set-up: Thecomparable to such profit-making two largest U.S. banks are using U.S.investments. Business Week (Novem- tax:payers' funds to loan to otherber 4, 1967) reports that" ... the private banks in Vietnam at a profithuge buildup of U.S. troops has made of $340,000 per yearl U.S. bankerthe Army-Air Force PX in Saigon and opinion not withstanding, this is aits hundreds of outlets throughout form of comprador financing. Com-South Vietnam one of the world's ments one banker: "It's a lot easier togiant retail operations." The proIl)i- lend money to other banks (in Southnent U.S. companies selling their goods Vietnam) at 40/0 interest than to in-through these ta:x:payer-financed giant v~stigate local businessmen for theirretail operations are Bell and Howell, credit rating. Weare not planning onKodak, and Polaroid in cameras, establishing anything like the compra-Pepsi-Cola, Coca-Cola, and Seven-up dor system." (Business Week, Octoberin soft drinks, Budweiser and Rhein- 14, 1967, p. 94.) Although the tra-gold in beer, etc., etc Thus private ditional French comprador system incommodity producers are profitable ex- Vietnam relied upon a "native" with'Porting their goods to South Vietnam a knowledge of the local businessand marketing them though taxpayer- community and who would "guaran-subsidized PX retail outlets. The tax- tee" the reliability of the loan client,payers are making the "investment" the U.S. banking variant of this sys-which private commercial enterprises tem in using the local banks as theordinarily bear.' compradors makes it no less a colonial

Another example {)f private U.S. technique.investments in Vietnam is the banking Obviously, U.S. private investmentsfacilities. The number of private' in South Vietnam are quite substan-banks in South Vietnam increased tial. These two examples could befrom lOin 1959 to 21 iin 1966, ex:panded upon and other examplestwo of which were branches of could be raised. But they would onlythe first and second largest U.S. banks corroborate the conclusion that such-the Bank of America and Chase- private investments are being under-Manhattan Bank. Both of these U.S. taken to enrich corporate America.banks are acting as comprador.Jfinan-ciers, th~ major portion of their South Links in the ChainVietnam profits coming from money AU the Asian c6untries we have

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

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The factual economic materials forthis article came, in the main, fromvarious publications of the U.S. Depart-ment of Commerce, Bureau of Inter-national Commerce. The p.olitical im-plications are, of course, conclusions ofthe present writer.

pendence," however much U.S. com-panies would like to "go it alone" onJapanese soil. While all forms offoreign investments. are theoretically'Possible in Japan, the Government hasfostered the negotiation of limited-term technical assistance contracts withroyalty payments, rather than the in-vestment of foreign equity capital.Moreover, the Government rarelyapproves a joint venture in which theforeign partner owns more than halfof the equity interest or has managerialcontrol of the venture. Likewise, tterms of any licensing arrangementare likely to be somewhat rewritten ,,'in Japan's favour before the agreementis finally approved. .

The overall economic effect of U.S.investments in Japan permits u.s.companies to use Japan as the jump-off point for reaching both Japaneseand yen-area markets. When privateU.S. investments in' Japan are madevia technical assistance agreements orjoint ventures, commodities e~portsfrom these Japan-based industriesspell profits for American firms.

Imperialism can operate betweenchains of nations. In the case of "FreeWorld" Asia, the U.S. im'Perial opera-tions place great stress on Japan andAustralia as Trojan horses holdingAmerican private capital to pillage theother Asian nations. This is donemainly through commodity exports.U.S. private investors, with the aid ofthe U.S. Government, have no hesi-tation in directly intervening with theircapital in all the Asian "Free World"nations. Even then when these invest-ments are jeopardized, the U.S. reliesupon Australia as a military stagingbase and on Japan as a supplier ofwar materials. In this way, the UnitedStates economic policy in Asia is sus-tained using Japan and Australia asthe main links in her imperial Asianchain.

Japan is another favourite spot foru.s. private capital. From 1962 to1965, for example, U.S. direct invest-ments in Japan increased from $373million to $676 million. Most ofthese investments were in manufactur-

ing and other industries. A totalof 3,062 technical assistance agree-ments between Japan and foreign lfirmswere validated between April 1949and March 1965, more than 60% ofwhich were concluded during the pastfive years. Furthermore, U.S. firmsaccounted for over 60% of the totalnumber of licensing agreements con-cluded during the 16-year perio.d. Theindustries accounting for the largestnumber of licensing agreements werethose in non-electrical machinery (ex-cluding transportation) (31.6%), elec-trical machinery (22.270), and chemi-cals and allied !products (20.5%).These technical assistance contractsand licensing agreements are compar-able to foreign U.S. investments andreturn lucrative profits.

FRONTIER

mining, oil refining, and cattle breedingare becoming increasingly important.British and Japanese capital is alsoheavily invested in Australia's minesand production ;processes. In thecourse of the imperial struggle to di-vide Australia, the U.S. has gained theupper hand in her trade relations, andis also using Australian soil as thestaging ground for U.S. military foraysinto Vietnam and other Asian coun-tries. To some extent at least, U.S.trade and private capital in Australiahave helped to shape her anti-commu-nist foreign policy orientation.

Another indication of U.S. privateinvestments in Japan is the joint ven-tures with Japanese companies. Ac-cording to official Japanese statistics,there were 536 validated joint ventureswith foreigners during the period fromApril 1950 to March 1.965, valued at$227 million. U.S. firms accountedfor about 70% of the foreign capitalinvested in these joint ventures. Theseinvestments have been made in keyindustries: A relatively large propor-tion of them were made in petroleum,machinery, and chemicals.

Japan guards her economic "inde-

discussed are subsidiary links in animperial chain between the U.S.,Japan, Australia, and, to a limiteddegree, New Zealand. As we haveobserved, the pattern of U.S. imperialo;perations in Asia exhibits the expan-sion of U.S. exports in capturing alarger and larger share of themarkets, the importation of alarge proportion of the total exportsof important materials and commodi-ties of these Asian nations, and theex;portation of increasing amounts ofprivate capital to exploit the labourand resources of these countries. Aswe shall see, the u.s. has used Aus-tralia and Japan as her economicbulwark in accomplishing her imperialex;pansion in Asia. Japan not onlyprovides materials to pursue the warin Vietnam and to set up militarycomplexes in other Asian countries,but the imperial joint-ventures of U.S.and Japanese companies are expand-ing the dollar area from within theenlarging .yen area. As we noted, themost recently designed technique foru.s. expansion in Asia is the produc-tion of manufactured goods in U.S.-owned factories located on Asian soiland using cheap Asian labour. Thisis facilitated by ex;porting raw mate-rials, medicines, etc., to various Asiannations from utilising branch opera-tions in the three main links in theU.S. imperial chain-Japan, Australiaand New Zealand.. Australia is a favourite spot forimperial capital. Foreign ca;pital ismoving in to exploit valuable depo-,sits of coal, lead, zinc, copper, ironore, gold, silver, tin, tungsten, urani-um,' antimony, wolfram, bauxite,zircon, manganese, cobalt, and cad-mium. Current estimates reveal thatex;ports of minerals-particularly ironore-will double from $300 millionin 1965 to $600 million annually by1970. Accordingly, private foreigninvestments in Australia amount toover $6 billion, of which the U.S.share is over $ 1.5 billion. Between1962 and 1965, U.S. directinvestments in Australia rose from abook value of $I,097 million to$1,677 million. This investment isheaviest in manufacturing (automo-biles, chemicals, food processing), but

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

33

weapons, the V-bombs which were thefirst instance of indiscriminate killingby remote control without any per-sonal risk Or responsibility. As thebombs had no definite targets, thevictims were pedestrians. (One couldalso cite the torpedoing of the Lusi-tania in the First World War asa precedent of killing non-militarvpopulation). During the Second WorldWar the Nazis beat all records ofcruelty and barbarousness by theirdeliberate attempts to exterminate thecivilian population of occupied coun-tries and regions by killing them enmasse in concentration camps. TheWestern Powers too, sometimes out ofpolitical motive, resorted to starvationof besieged cities and countries,even after cessation of hostilities. Theonly exception was the Soviet UnIon,which did not take to bombing ofcivilian population.

The Terror BombThe chapter of nuclear weapons

opened. In this case too; HitleriteGermany was the first to split the ura-nium. Under the circumstances thescientists of the Allied Powers hadno alternative but to work on theBomb. But fortunately Germany wasdefeated without using it. Was thisnew weapon necessary for defeatingJapan? The Allies knew that Russiawould enter, the war against Japanthree months after the fall of Germany.As the Red Army was about to marchinto Manchuria and Japan was send-ing peace feelers through diplomaticchannels, two atOm bombs were drop-ped, one on Hiroshima and the otheron Nagasaki, two cities which were byno means military targets.

Here, too, was a second edition ofthe Cherwell-Tizard dispute andsomething more. The U.S. nuclearhawks headed by General Groveswanted to demonstrate their terriblepower. Secondly, the overriding poli-tical consideration of the Truman ad-ministration was to prevent the RedArmy from landing on the Japanesemainland by staging an atom-strucksurrender, and thus, unlike Germany,to save the whOle of Japan for thecapitalist world system. AnywayGeneral Groves did not even let the

charges against the war criminals theU.S. chief prosecutor, Mr Jackson,stressed that "certain acts and viola-tions of treaties were crimes irrespec-tive of who committed them-Ger-many or the 'uSA ... "

The factor that has establisheditself as decisive in war is the power.of, industry and technical inventivenessof the scientists. And in the wake ofwars of conquest by imperialistpowers the civilian population alwayssuffers, even after cessation of hosti-lities.

The barriers against destruction ofcivilians completely broke down inWorld War II as a result of the deve-lopment of the air force. It was Ger-many which took the lead in air raidson cities like Warsaw, Rotterdam,Oslo, London, Coventry. The Britishpaid them back in their own coin.

The British decision an bombingGerman cities had two leading advo-cates- Tizard and Lindemann, twotalented scientists turned administra-tor and politician. Thanks to hisprime role in developing radar whichenabled the small RAF to win theBattle of Britain, Tizard was madechairman of the Committee of Def-ence. As regards Lindemann, nodoubt an expert in technical warfare,his mare valuable capital was hisfriendship with Churchill, who had apeership conferred on him afterappointing him first scientific adviser.Thus he came to be know as LordCherwell.

It was Lord Chcrwell who. in 1942advised the bombing of workers' resi-dential areas in big German cities.Tizard did not agree because he belie-ved raids on military targets wouldbe more fruitful. Churchill sided withChelrwell. Mass raids followed. Butthe bombing was not militarily effec-tive. It was found that Lord Cherwell'sestimates of the damage that wouldbe caused by such air raids were sixtimes too high.

Evil was followed by greater evil.The Germans later used their super-

TARUN CHATTERJEE

Humanisation Of War ?

1S everything permissible in war?In the 19th century at least it was

not so. The accepted principle wasthat States may conduct wars againstthe military forces of the enemy, butnot against the civilian population.This principle was first violated, if onemay describe it so, when in 1866 thePrussian Army used the "NeedleGun", an atrocious weapon, to <lefeatAustria. In 1870-71 the French toofollowed suit with their 'Chassepot',though without success. But public~pinion in those times was consciousenough to condemn such weapons ofmass murder designed by scientists.The inherent ethical danger was recog-nised, leading to the Red Cross andthe Geneva Conventions forbidding theuse of weapons of mass murder aga-inst the civilian population.

The first violator was the army ofthe Kaiser. Many noted German scien-tists took part in innovating weaponswhich did not spare the civilians. TheFirst World War began in the oldfashion, with army marches and bat-tles. But soon its .character changed.The combat zones became stationaryand trench warfare followed. Attemptsat breakthroughs were made withconcentration of artillery. The soldierbecame more and more a mere tar-get of destruction by the superhumanforces of technical sciences. He waskilled by weapons concentrated faraway from him.

Came the Second World War, airraids on cities and towns, Nazi concen-tration camp mass murders, the Vmissiles and the atom bomb whichspared nobody, men, women or child-

-reno Time has cOvered the concentra-tion camps and mass burial groundswith grass and weeds but the memoryof millions of victims lives on and isrevived by the blood spilled inKorea, in Vietnam and other places.Nothing, remains of the high ideals of"humanisation of war' though morethan 20 years ago the victorious Pow-ers approved the Nuremberg Charteragainst war crimes, when, pressing the

SEPTEMBER 28, J 968

what is at stake. This is to maintaintheir monopoly in the balance of ter-ror under the camouflage of theirchatter about non-proliferation, as ifthe danger to humanity does notcome from the huge stockpiles theyhold, but from new and would-bepossessors of the bomb. What hap- ;.>-<''Pened in Cuba? Who is threateningthe Vietnamese witli the Bomb? Thepoint is that the balance of terror isunstable and can topple. The way outis not hypocritical talk of non-proli-feration, but the overcoming of theparalysis in the struggle for peace. Itis much more fruitful to fight againstand assist in every possible way warsof degenerate mass murder and to'pillory the murderers of the civilianpopulation, violators of the GenevaConventions, as the Nuremberg Char-ter demands. And scientists, of allpersons, ·bear a great social responsi-bility in this lfight because it is theywho innovate the weapons of massmurder.

LGC-I03

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

ieLIPTON'S MEANS 0000 TEA

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FRONTIER

9570 were soldiers and 5% civilians.In World War II, 50 million 'Perished.Of them 52510 were soldiers and 48%were civilians. Of the 9 million victimsof the Korean war 84% were civiliansand only 16510 soldiers. In the presentwar in Vietnam civilian casualtiesmust be more. So what remains of thetraditional idea of a hero's death onthe batt1~field for one's motherland,for one's children and wife? Isn't it afairy tale in the age of dying but dead-ly imperialism?

The question is:· since it has alwaysbeen like this, will it always be likethis? Attempts to put nuclear techno-logy on a 'Peaceful internationai basishave so far not borne any fruit. AsProfessor Max Born writes, "the deve-lopment of international ballistic mis-siles ~n competition between the twogreat Powers "is continuing, with theexploration· of space 'Programmesserving as a cover-up. Each of theGreat Powers now has enough nuclearweapons to annihilate the human racemany times over." Politicians know

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scientists (who made the bomb) knowof the decision to use the new weaponbecause they had accurately predictedthe long-term consequences of eX'plod-ing the bomb over Japan. On Groves'initiative President Truman's advisorycommittee of 'scientists' followed LordCherwell's example. So nothing re-mained of the Geneva Conventions onhumanisation of war.

The question of course does notboil down to whether poison gas, gre-nades or Lazy Dogs are more humanethan the atom bomb, but to permis~sibility of using 'Poison, always consi-dered an instrument of cowardly mur-der, as a war weapon. Chemical andgas warfare (in Abyssynia, Korea andVietnam) was a decisive moral defeat.Today a State like the USA hardlyshrinks from putting one of it to useif it should prove a military advantage.

In order to lfind out the result ofthe collapse of all human considera-tions in war one can consider the threebig wars of this century. In WorldWar I, of the total 10 million victims,

COMMENTATOR

The Press

; 35

first wage committee for journalistsadded to the already existing disparitybetween journalists and non-journa-lists. The former were assured ofwhat in those days were handsomewages while the latter continued toget a pittance. The statutory obliga-tion to increase the wages of journa-lists was used by p,roprietors as apretext to freeze practically the wagesof non-journalists, embittering the re-lation between the two. The suddenaffluence of journalists was largely atthe cost of non-journalists, for surelyno proprietor had met the higher wagebilI out of his own Iprofits.

Not many voices were raised at thattime against the unfairness of thisdevelopment. Even before the /firstwage committee's recommendationshad been implemented, journalistswere better paid than non-journalists,and improvement of the service con-ditions of the latter should have beengiven at least equal priority. Not onlywas that t done, the conditions. ofnon-journalists ere allowed to deter-iorate further. e few feeble voicesthat were raised we e silenced: by mili-tant working journalists who arguedthat in no industry, wide disparitiesb'etween the service conditions of onegroup of workmen and another couldcontinue for long and the movementof working journalists, though uncon-nected with the lot of other employeesin newspaper establishments, was in-directly helping the struggle of non-journalists for living wages. A virtuewas thus sought to be made of plainselfishness.

Anyone who was connected withnewspapers in those days will remem-ber how bitter the relation betweenjournalists and non-journalists in everynews'paper establishment was: Des-pairing of justice- from emplo-yers and support from journalists,the non-journalists started organisingthemselves. The All-India News-paper Employees Federation, theorganisation of non-journalists, isof much later origin than theFederation of Working Journalists,but in its short span of about ten yearsit has shown much greater unJtyanddetermination than the journalists'organisation. This was necessary for

lists to grasp fully this simple truthmade them adopt an ambivalent atti-tude towards the non-journalists'strike. Journalists have a separatedispute with their employers, andparticipation' in the strike would nothave resolved that dispute. Theirswas a statutory wage board, and thedispute over its award is awaiting set-tlement in court. But this need nothave prevented the journalists fromjoining the strike to express, their soli-darity with their colleagues' in otherdepartments, especially as they knewthat with the non-journalists on strikethe papers could not come out. In-stead they passed a resolution whichassumed that they had an option ina situation in which they had none.

An opportunity to make amends fortheir past folly was thus thrown awayby the journalists. Ever since theGovernment's announcement in thefirst Lok Sabha of its decision to ap-iPOint'a Press Commission the journa-lists' lobby has been active, particular-ly in New Delhi. Even now there aretoo many journalists' organisationsdiffering from one another on vitalissues; lfifteen years ago they weremore disunited. What then came to beknown as the views of journalists wasactually the opinion of some activelobbyists among New Delhi's news-paper men, most of them special cor-respondents. As a result the PressCommision's recommendation practi-cally ignored the role of non-journa-lists in newspaper production.The action taken by the Govern-ment on these recommendationscould not be otherwise. The journa-lists condescended to be describedas workmen for job securityand improved service conditions; butspecial laws had to be enacted settingthem apart as a privileged class notgoverned by ordinary labour laws.

In their hour of triumph they for-got their collBagues in other depart-P1~nts; The recommendations of the

Lessons Of A Strike

, TO people accustomed to regardnewspapers as a public utility

the prolonged strike in the industrymust have been a source of annoyance.Most of the bigger papers, which com-mand the bulk of the newspajper cir-culation in the country, were not avail-able, and readers had to make do withwhatever paper they could get. Butnewspajper habits, like many others,are difficult to change; one alwayspines for one's familiar fare, thoughthere may not be much to choose be-tween one paper and another. Thisknown attitude of readers sustainednewSjpaperproprietors in their long warof nerves with their employees. Theyknew that within days of resumptionthey would be able to reach their oldcirculation and profusion of advertise-ment. They also do not lack in thenecessary ingenuity to make up for thehuge loss they have incurred duringthe days their papers could not comeout.

The strike was despite the journal-ists. The decision was not theirs,and they were, in most cases, passivesupporters of the strike. The non-journalists struck; the journalists de-cided not to take any st~p to breakthe strike, though, apart from theimpropriety of it, the journalists wouldnot have been able to bring out thepajpers even if the decision had beenotherwise. In their egotism journa-,lists have always considered themselv-es the more important limb of anewspaper organisation, and theowners have he~pedJto foster this illu-sion to perpetuate a division between'their employees. The strike shouldhave knocked out this delusion, forit has shown that newsp:liPers are pro-ducts of cooperative effort and theso-called intellectual work of journa-lists is only a part of a total endea-vour without which no newspaper cancome out.

This sounds trite no doubt, but itseems that the failure of the journa,-

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dency of the strike. None of themcould be called strike-breakers, forthey were only carrying the IFWJ'sargument to its logical conclusion.Even if they worked harder than everbefore, the papers, with the non-jour-nalists on strike, would not have beenout. As their joining would not have /~altered the situation, they could notbe accused of violating the IFWJ deci-sion. On the other hand, there wasa group, admittedly in a minority,who mad~ the non-journalists' struggletheir own. They have become brand-ed and are exposed to certain obviousrisks. , Both these could be avoided

.had the IFWJ decided to participatein the strike; the unity of journalistswould not have been impaired thenand a healthier relationship betweenjournalists and non-journalists wouldhave been forged. The danger ofvictimisation would also have b nless.

Such lapses are likely to recur aslong as journalists and non-journalistshave separate unions. Their identityof interest and abject dependence oneach other have been established. Per-haps journalists fear that in a com-mon union Or federation they will belost as they will always remain in aminority. This is largely a legacy of!past attitudes; if other categories ofnewspaper employees can unite andact in the common interest, there is

,no reason why the interest of jounia-lists will not be safe in a commonunion.

r

FRONTIER·

satisfied with a non-statutory board.The attitude of employers to wageboards is not unknown to the Govern-ment: while they challenge the recom-mendations of statutory wage boards ina court of law, recommendations ofnon-statutory wage boards they sim-ply refuse to implement.

Whether the verdict of the courtgoes in their favour or not, the ~

, pointment of a statutory wage boardfor journalists had en~ured a legalremedy. Of course, the wage boarditself was a quasi-judicial body presid-ed over as it was by a high court judgeand a provision for further judicialscrutiny of its recommendations mayappear time-consuming, if not redun-dant. Yet journalists had an alter-native course which was denied to non-journalisfs. After, the strike' MrJaisukhlal Hathi announced that theGovernment was examining if therecommendations of the non-journa-lists' wage board could be made sta-tutory; he gave an impression thatthe prqposal was legally feasible. Thediscrimination seems to have beenmade as a matter of policy, and em-ployers being, what they are, the pri-mary responsibility for the strike is ofthe Government.

The IFWJ has helped none by itsattitude towards the strike. Therehave been, of course, individual actsof participation; the president of theIFWJ courted arrest in Bombay in ademonstration; in Calcutta also the in-volvement of some of the journalistsin the strike was no less than any ofthe non-journalists. But journalistsas a whole have maintained an aloof-ness as if the strike was none of theirbusiness and they have been willy-nilly drawn into it. They forgot thatin a trial of strength between ellllP1oy-ers and employees the collective stre-ngth of the latter is undermined ifsome employees stand apart; passivityin such matters indirectly helps em-ployers.

Perhaps the IFWJ wanted to evadea firm decision on this issue. Theindecision has not helped the organisa-tion. It created a rift among journa-lists, some of whom thought that sincethey were not participants in thestrike they could join <;ludng the pen-

36

the survival of the AINEF, for it knewfrom the beginning that it would haveto follow a different path from theIFWJ. The movement of workingjournalislts has been little else thanlobbying.' It is not for nothing thatreporters covering legislatures andgovernmental activities have beengiven weightage in successive wageboard recommendations. The hierar-chical system among journalists isnowhere more pronounced and rigidthan among reporters, at the apex ofwhich are special correspondents ac-credited to the Government of India,It is difficult to understand how re-porting a government which is incapa-ble of either thinking or acting in acomplex situation can be a more res-ponsible job than covering, say, massactions or natural calamities; yet onthat) grou'nd special correspondents aremore privileged than other categoriesof reporters.

The fact is that the Government hasa vested interest in special correspond-ents. How a news is presented dependslargely on them. All journalistshave to work with a rigid frame-work of policy; establishment papersare not in the habit of criticisingthe Government, except whentheir interests are directly threaten-ed, and such occasions are rare.Even then, correspondents en-joy a measure of freedom; they canhighlight certain features of a decision,casually mention some others, andomit some altogether if they so choose;they may allow personal relations tocolour their writing. A governmentwhich functions through an elaboratenetwork of patronage knows that cor-reSfPondents' discretion may be exer-cised in its favour if they can be kepton the right side. They have, thereforebeen practically suborned into an ele-vated status.

Despite their own caste system, jour-nalists as a class have been able to im-prove their lot considerably in the lastone decade or so. The non-journa-lists, on the other han~, had to waitall these years and suffer patiently thediscrimination. A fresh injustice wasdone to them when a statutory wageboard was set up for the journalistswhile the non-journalists had to be

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36

Nonsense RhymesBy Sukumar Ray

Translated by SATYAJIT RAY

Baburam the Snake-charmer

Hullo there, Baburam-what have you got in there?Snakes? Aha -and do you think there's one that you could spare?You know, I'd love to have one, but let me tell you this-The ones that bite are'nt right ior me-nor the ones that hiss.

I'd also skip the ones that butt,As well the ones that whistle,Or the ones that slink aboutOr show their fangs, or bristle.

As for eating habits, I think it would be niceTo go for ones that only take a meal of milk and rice.I'm sure you know the kind of snake I, want from what I've said,Do let me have one, Baburam, so I could bash its head.

Old Tickler

Go East Or West, go North. Or South, by land or sea or air,But before you go, make sure old Tickler isn't there.Tickler is a terror, and I'll tell you what he's after-He'll have you stuffing tickle chops until you choke with laughter.It's hard to tell just where he lives, and harder to restrict him,He's always just around the corner looking fOr a victim.His method is quite simpk: he'll grab you by your sleeveAnd tell you anecdotes which he insists you must believe.He thinks they're very funny, while others !find them grim,(They have to keep on laughing, though, so as to humour him).One wouldn't mind the stories if they were all one had to bear,He also uses tickle-feathers, which is most unfair,And so he goes on cackling, 'Oh, but don't you think it's funny-Aunt Kitty selling pigeons' eggs and figs and cloves and honey IThe eggs are long and conical, the cloves are convoluted,The figs have arabesques on them nicely executed.From dawn 'til dusk Aunt Kitty sings a string of motley airs,All mews and barks and brays and neighs (Aunt Kitty calls them,Prayers)'.Saying so, he brings his hand behind your back to pinch you,At which you have to laugh unless you want that he should lynch you.

Stew Much!

A duck once met a porcupine ; they formed a corporationWhich called itself a Porcuduck (a beastly conjugation!) .A stork to a turtle said, 'Let's put my head upon your torso ;We who are so pretty now, as Stortle would be 'more so !'

38

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SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

.

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IThe European elite undertook tomanufacture a native elite. Theypicked out promising adolescents;they branded them, as with red hot-iron, with the principles of Westernculture; they stuffed their moutilisfull with high-sounding phrases,grand gluttonous words that stuck tothe teeth. After a short stay in themother country they were sent home,

. whitewashed. These walking lies hadnothing left to say to their brothers;they only echoed. From Paris, fromLondon, from Amsterdam we wouldutter the words "ParthenOl1!Brother-hood!" and somewhere ~n Africa orAsia lips would open " .•. thenon! ...therhood!" It was the golden age.

39

depart", I quote from Muggeridgeagain, "the M.A.s remain; the White-man's burden, when it grows too

. heavy and unrewarding, is easily shed,but there is Professor Ghose to pickit up again, and, what is worse, lay itback at our feet."

We the English-knowing intellec-tuals (the adjective is superfluous forone is not an intellectual unless oneknows English) pay our humble tri-bute to our "makers" by trying not toact as ourselves but as "them" or,what is worse, as what we think theyare. The process did not begin justyesterday: our forefathers built them-selves in the image of the district col-lector, or the judge or the collegeprincipal, (Colonel Arbuthnot) allof whom were pukka sahibs; ouryounger generation imitates the Anglo-Saxon and American youth of themost dissolute and anarchist type toassert its elite status. A whole bastardculture-since the days of Raja Ram-mohan's Calcutta, in 1818, whenstreet urchins ran after David Hareand cried "Sahib I Teach us English"-has grown up to be more imitative"more characterless and more barren.It is like what Sartre describes in hisPreface to Frantz Fanon's book, The.Wretched of the Earth:

The charm of the English languagestill keeps us in that bondage; weshall not leave the cage even thoughthe door is left wide open.

Before I proceed further I must put

less he is too self-conscious--Iet hisstyle of writing take care of itself.Indeed, we do so in our mothertongue every day. When I write apiece in Bengali I do not ponderwhat my style is going to be ; but Ido so, even unconsciously, as soon asI attempt writing in English. Thetortuous process can only be under-stood by analogies: we search forwords before we grasp the idea; weraise the scaffolding before the archi-tects' plan has been delivered into ourhands. The result is disastrous: thefountain of creative thinking dries upat the very source.

This aspect needs a great deal ofpondering. If writing in English-even bad English-had not interferedwith Our process of thinking it wouldnot have been so bad, but when thishlllppens we cease to be thinking men.Lord knows, I do not like MalcolmMuggeridge and his jokes, but whenhe writes that "in expiring, the BritishRaj perpetuated itself in the personsof its successors" and that "Nehruwas the last Viceroy", I daresay I seehis point. The physical injuries ofBritish 'colonial rule will heal withthe !passage of time, but so long asEnglish continues to be the badge ofIndia's elite culture, we cannot for-give the "Raj" for what it has madeof us. "The captains and the kings

ANIRUDHA GUPTA

The lizard with the lparrot's head thought; Taking to the chillyAfter years of eating worms is absolutely silly.A prancing goat-{)ne wonders why-was driven by a needTo bequeath its upper portion to a crawling centipede.The giraffe with grasshopper's limbs reflected: why should IGo for walks in grassy fields, now that I can fly ~The nice contented cow will doubtless get a frightful shockOn finding out its lower limbs belong to a fighting cock.It's obvious the Whalephant is not a happy notion:The head goes for the jungle, while the tail turns to the ocean,The lion's lack of horns distressed him greatly, soHe teamed up with a dear-now watch his antlers grow!

FR.ONTIER.

IN his Continent of Circe Nirad C.Chaudhuri says that each time he

wrote a book in English he sent it firstto his publishers for careful editing."All writers", he adds, "even the best,'need the help of publisher's editor,and we the writers of Babu Englishneed it most."

This comes from.. the pen of onewhose place as a writer in English isn0V\'lassured; I wonder if what we thelesser mortals write and pass of asEnglish deserve even the trouble ofediting. The fault is not ours butthat of the language. "The use of !pre-position", says that delightful hand-book, An ABC of English Usage,"before nouns in !fixed or commonphrases . . . is generally a matter ofinstinct with the Englishman". Theaverage "Briton" will never know theagony we undergo in choosing correctprepositions fOr the construction ofsimple sentences.

The trouble does not lie in writmggrammatically (our teacher at schooltaught us grammar by correcting thepublished speeches of the Viceroy),but in the fact that we have to formu-late first our sentences so thaf we mayproject our thoughts into them. Letme make this point clear: an English-man, like a Tamilian, or Bengali orPunjabi, would write whateverthoughts come to his mind and-un-

What Is The Good Of WritingIn English?

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

'"

, I

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

other scores of new journals, news-papers, weeklies and high-brow acade-mic quarterlies in English have COmeout to satisfy the mtellectual curiosity,the sum of adventure or misadventureof the English-knowing elite. Thereis literally a scramble among writersto send their contributions to thesejournals, even though, until very recen-tly most of them were writing in theirrespective languages. As a result, thequality of Indian English has deterio-rated deplorably, while a number ofIndian language journals have beensearching in vain for fresh and originalcontributions. It is a curious processof asphyxiation which many of us feelbut do not know what can be doneabout it.

To repeat, the quality of Indian writ-ing both in English and other langu-ages since. independence has vastly de-teriorated and in this respect at least,we have to admit that our !previousgenerations were better. I do not saythis with reference to the ave-rage English-knowing "Babu" whosefrustrated attempt to become Angliciz-ed was as pathetic as thecontempt shown towards himby the British was cruel. The'Babu" was the bastard born outof fornication between Victorian Eng-land and post-Mughal India and yetno father had hated his son more thanthe British did the 'Babu', Here aresome typical instances of that hatred :

Lord Lytton to George Hamilton,22nd, January 1877: .

You will soon see that the Anglo-Indians have little or nothing of whatis really India, and that the CivilServants, with all their magnificentqualities, have strongly ingrained intheir mind, .... that no one but anEnglishman can do anything. So that

As for the Babus, I thought it neces-sary to tell them plainly that theencouragement of natives does not

mean the supremacy of Baboodom.

In a letter Dufferin, who succeededhim as Viceroy, Lord Northbrookwarned about the prevailing prejudiceof Englishmen agai~st educatedIndians:

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country." [Times of India, Bom-bay, 18th February 1968].

(2) "Dr. M's book, claimed to bea "full-fledged, scientific" stUdyof non-alignment. in India'sFqreign Policy reads like .... adoctoral thesis for an undemand_ing university". [Statesman,Calcutta, 31st March 1968].

(3) "English style is somewhat un-finished and needs poise andbalance". [Times of India, 21st

. April 1968],

in a word of caution. I .am not asocial reformer and therefore I am notpleading here for the abolition of Eng-lish or suggesting' that we should-given our present deplorable resources-switch Over to Hindi or any otherlanguage for a quick solution. Theseare matters which should be left to thepoliticians, not because they can solveanything but because any feeble noisewhich we may succeed in making willhardly become audible in this Towerof Babel. All that this article intendsto do is to show how the continueduse of English-especially written Eng-lish-has influenced the behaviour ofIndian intellectuals in the sphere ofhigher learning.

(1) ',A paragraph like this for ex-ample can only be the product ofan immature mind and writtenby one who wants to make asignificant contribution to. theelimination of English from this

I do not doubt the reviewers' judg-ment; but I know the impact suchcomments would make on the author'smind. For the next five Or six yearshe may not recover enough to give a

Baual Values second try ~ohis (let us hope) buddingIt is not that the continued use of talents.

English has stifled creative thinking,. I do not think that Indian jouinal-but it has brought about a set of banal ists can write good English either, butvalues and orientations whose total im- their profession is their best safeguard.pact on society has been no less than They can write on anything in a slap-a disaster. It is perhaps the very fact dash manner and call it "journalistic".that the task of writing in English has We exclude these writers from ourbecome so challenging that so many consideration; fOr different reasons notIndian scholars, writers and students connected with the theme of this arti-devote their time and energy trying to cle, We also exclude those handful ofobtain a mastery Over the language. Indian novelists such as KhuswantBesides the thrill of the challenge, there Singh, Kamala Markandaya, R. K.is the added incentive of being recog- Narayan etc., who have made theirnized as a VIP if one has really writ- mark by writing in English. Our mainten something "good" in English. focus is those serious writers of poli-

The worth or popularity of a book tics, history, economics, and so on,written by an Indian on any subject who have perhaps spent their lifetimedoes not depend so much on what it in producing their "magnum opus"contains, but on, let us say, its "ex- in the English language. With a fewcellent English", "lucid style", "hum- exceptions, their !products representOur" etc. etc. Read the weekly re- monuments of misdirected energy; andviews that appear in English language yet, more and more scholars come upnewspapers. In the case of a book to try their hand in English.written by a foreigner the reviewers. It is here that we find at work whattake pains to inform their readers what sociologist M. S. Srinivas calls, in athat book contains; the same people different context, the process of "Sans-would dismiss books on serious sub- kritization". It is through his know-jects written by Indians as "trash", or ledge of English that the Indian i!!tel-simply "unreadable". The following lectual Or scholar tries to attain athree excerpts taken at random may degree of re&pectability which no otherserve as good illustrations: Indian language can provide him.

The process of Sanskritization_Ihope Srinivas will excuse me for mis-using his concept-has broUght abouta curious de'velopment in Indian intel-lectual activities. While on one sidethe demand for the abolition 'of Eng-lish has gathered momentum, on the

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the time to adopt this pattern of beha-viour, but I do think there was a .genu-ine effort on their part to become bil-ingual; to elevate their status throughthe English language and, at the sametime, serve the people by writing someof their pieces in their respective lan-guages.

Since independence this traditionhas broken down. Few of our goodEnglish-knowing writers would condes-cend to write in any language otherthan English; those who have failed todistinguish themselves in written orspoken English, by now, through aprocess of psychological inversion,have come to hate it and would notcare to read anything written in Eng-lish. Thus, within the ranks of theelite two sub-groups have ~ppeared:One with a highly urbanized back-ground, polished, westernized and allthat, with whom English is the statussymbol; and the other, rural oriented,less westernized, with whom the ban-ning of English has become a statusobsession. This does not reflect aclass conflict, but perhaps an inade-quate understanding of the allocationof roles between the two sub-groups.The social and' intellectual values ofthe Indian elite are still being deter-mined by the first sub-group, whereaspolitics and political power have cometo be dominated by the latter; and,paradoxically, there is as much inter-course as friction between the two.The Anglicised 'Babu' who finds him-self helpless without his knife and fork,would have no compunction in kow-towing before the politician for a fav-our, and the English-hating Hindi-loving politician would find no contra-diction in sending his children to publicschools where they would learn thelatest accent in spoken English.

The present controversy between thepro-English and anti-English groups,therefore, is not a reflection of originalthinking; it is a tussle for adjustmentbetween the two groups over the de-marcation of their respective roles. Solong as English continues, the contra-diction will continue, and so long asthe contradiction remains English shallcontinue. We shall shout in one voice"Down with English I Long, LiveEnglish".

"An Englishman once publicly dec-lared that I was more English thanmost Englishmen. I freely confessthat I have a genuine admiration forthose great institutions which havehelped to build up English life andthe fabric of British constitutionalfreedom".

.... you will find a good deal of quietopposition to any efforts you maymake to employ largely educatedNatives.Despite this warning, Dufferin deve-

loped an allergy towards the educatedBengalis. He wrote :

I have already discovered that theBengalee Baboo is a most irritatingand troublesome gentleman .... Hehas a great deal of Celtic perverse-ness, vivacity and cunning .... "

Yet the "son" loved his "father"with the devotion of a dog. He imita-ted him; watched him to learn whenand how he nodded his head; whenhe laughed; whw he burst into angerand called him "a bastard", and when-which was not often-lpatted hisback and promised him a promotion.And by imitating him he learned hisEnglish and boasted about it beforehis wife, among his friends and inclubs.

Even Our respectable nationalistleaders suffered, from the disease : herewe can give only one example. (Sir)Surendra Nath Banerjea, who failed toenter the Anglo-Indian Civil Serviceafter a brilliant academic career, chosepolitics as his vocation and soon be-came the doyen among Indian nationa-lists. Yet, he too could not suppressboasting about his accomplishment inimitating the "father", Here is a pas-sage from his autobiography, ANation in Making (' 925)-

We have digressed too far ; let us re-turn to our main theme. We startedby saying that in one respect the pre-,vious generations of writers and scho-dars were more constructive; whilewriting in English, they also took painsto contribut~ some of their best piecesin their own languages. It was per-haps the nationalist background whichpromoted the English-knowing elite of

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ported and nudity itself is not obsceneas long as the vital spot is suggestivelyconcealed, Or . heavily touched up.Pubic hair, of course, would be theworst form of obscenity. All this isas it should be, and I do not thinkthat the official policy (or whateverthere is of that) is in any significantway different from the official policyof any ordinary middle-of-the-roaddemocracy of the West. If we can'tboast of a Times Square, it is notsomething greatly to be regretted. Incertain big cities, floor-shows are per-mitted, which, though not consideredanywhere near to those in the West,

·still take a certain amount of licencefor granted. But the 'dirty' bookbusiness is strictly illegal, and thoughit is not really difficult to get one ofthem if one really wants it, the pos-sesssion of one is an offence and mightland one into trouble. There haveeven been occasional raids on book-shops and a few copies have beenconfiscated and destroyed, but suchactions have had no perceptible effectupon the trade as a whole.

Seven CitiesI have handled such books in seven

cities of India. In Bangalore, thebooks were displayed openly, thoughnot -garishly. In Bombay andCalcutta, touts approached me withbooks as well as pictures (along withthe promises of things even more sub-stantial). In Hyderabad, Madras andDelhi, I learnt the fascinating processof the proper opening gambit, the in-nocent enquiry, the wink of superiorknowledge, all cuJminating in a leche-rous leer of perfect understanding,and the book changing hands. Andin the place I am staying now, acouple of I e a din g booksellers(thoroughly respectable gentlemen)deal in dirty books as a sort of hobby-cum-side-business, neither too openlynor too surreptitiously, if you knowwhat I mean.

The one thing that immediatelystrikes a prospective pornographyhunter in India is the enormous ex-pense involved. I better illustrate itwith my own experience. When Ilfirst learnt. that there were books.whose main intention was to titillate,

forms of e~pression are in fact, dirty.(Lawrence and Joyce considered eachother's work dirty, while for Law-rence, Jane Eyre was a fine exampleof pornographic writing. Poor Char-lotte Bronte!)

Broadly speaking, one can say that/pornography )s 'anti-Jrife' ('whateverthat might mean). It is this type ofwriting, .difficult to define, but gene-rally recognizable, that I shall be dea-ling with. I should also like to stressthat I am having in mind books writ-ten in English, and not the ancientclassics of pornography (or erotica)in Sanskrit and other Indian languages.Few people among the Indian intelli-gentsia can read and understand Sans-krit and the job of locating the spicybits in the various Indian languagesis quite difficult. It is also not per-haps worth the effort, for by andlarge, it does not 'Provide the 'kicks'that modern pornography seeks toprovide. Indian classical erotica is(for the modern readers) not 'hot'enough because of its avowedly hav-ing for its utimate objective somethingelse than mere titillation and the ac-companying sensations. And it isalmost as difficult as Sanskrit. Since,after all, the most sensible way ofdoing anything is to do it withouttears, imported pornography has afairly substantial readership in thiscountry. But I do not want to sug-gest that contemporary Indian writingis completely barren. We do producecurrent pornography, in English aswell as in a few Indian languages.But the really sophisticated people goin for the English (imported) ratherthan the English (desi), or the pro-ductions in Hindi, Bengali, Telugu,Tamil &c. I do not know if porno-graphy in Indian languages is pro-duced abroad for marketing here.

Officially pornography is banned inthe country. Nobody has de'finedwhaf books are 'dirty' or what 'obscen-nity' is, but by and large, there havebeen few instances of the Customsor the police obstructing the entry ofa book which is 'different' but not'dirty'. (But the Penguin Chatterley,though easily available, is still soldonly under the counter.) At the sametime, girlie magazines are openly im-

M. S. PRABHAKAR

Pornography In India

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

IN this article, I shall try to discusscertain aspects of the production

of pornography, its marketing, andthe nature of pornographic readingamong the educated section of Indiansociety. At the outset, I would liketo make it clear that I am confiningmy discussion to pornographic booksonly, though strictly speaking, the term'pornography' would include soundand film track, photographs &c. It isto be greatly regretted that thoughmost of us can claim to 'know' whatpornography is, we stilI lack a properdefinition of it. The OED is com-pletely unhelpful in this regard. Underthe entries 'Pornogra'Ph', 'Pornogra-pher', 'Pornography', one finds thesedp nitions: "An obscene writing, orpIctorial illustration"; "One who wri-tes of prostitutes or obscene matters;

• a portrayer of obscene subjects";"Descriptions of the life, manners etc.of prostitutes and their patrons (sic);hence, the expression Or suggestion ofobscene Or unchaste subjects in lite-rature or art; pornographic literatureor art". Since the word 'obscene' wasused frequently in these definitions,I looked up 'obscene' (in the samevolume) and found it defined as "off-ensive to modesty Or decency, expres-sing Or suggesting unchaste or lustful

~ ideas; impure, indecent, lewd." Allthese lead us nowhere since at eachstage, value-judgments are involvedand these are entirely personal. Itis quite likely that a far larger numberof people get sexually stimulated onreading Fanny Hill, but even if onesingle individual gets sexual stimula-tion on reading a texbook of calculus(there has been more than one suchinstance, by the way), it should bedeemed equally guilty along withFanny Hill. But still, since most of usclaim to know what pornography is,most of us would have no difficulty inrecognizing a piece of pornographicwriting. Such different commentators

. as Orwell, C. H. Rolph, D. H. Law-rence and James Joy£.e have agreedthat certain types of writing and Qt4er

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

and destroyed, the price differential istoo mu~h. The same exorbitantrates are the rule in other branches ofthe business. If you are invited fora private showing of some continentallfilms (voor continent I what a reputa-tion !), you are in for about a hund-red rupees contribution. Playboy,which even before devaluation usedto cost around ten rupees (actual pricebeing seventy-five cents), now fetchesanything up to twenty-five rUl'ees.This prohibitive price of imported 'POr-nography has, to some extent, encour-aged indigenous production, but I amconstrained to confess that what isproduced here is far inferior to whatwe im['ort. Of course, it is difficultto imagine anything worse written thanthe commercial pornography of theWest; but even that apparently im-possible thing our writers haveachieved,

The economics of pornographyshould obviously limit its readershipto the middle-middle class arid above.Roughly speaking, one can say thatthe middle-middle-class takes the in-digenous stuff; the upper-middle andthe upper classes take respect-tively the imported letter andthe imported image. Those at thebottom rungs of the social lad-

44

FRONTIER

I was seventeen years old. Till then, reach my goal (like many a youngall the excitement I got was from man before me) the hard way. Ireading a l'articularly ponderous sex- saved every bit of my allowance themagazine, produced from the worthiest next lfive weeks, placed my twenty-and dullest of motives, a sort of a five rupees on the counter and borrow-Marie Stopes in Indian style. I was a ed a book. I do not remember itsnewcomer in a big town, the upcoun- title now, but it was a volume of abouttryman in the metropolis. A class- two hundred and fifty pages. I read itmate of mine showed a book. he had sitting on a bench in a sort of a boule-'got' (he didn't tell me how) and vard quite close to the shop. I readallowed me to read l'arts of it. He it twice, the second time omitting thethen gave it to me for jnst one hour uninteresting details-it is strangeafter which he would take'it back. I that even in such books, one canhadi no choice except to cut the class, omit quite a lot of unnecessary de-and sitting under a tree on the college tails, though these are l'erhaps neces-lawn, with the summer midday sun sary for the first reading-and wentfiercely brilliant, I read the book at a back to the shop. My idea was tofeverish pace, completely oblivious of borrow another book on the samethe surroundings. It was the first deposit. But no. The shopkeepertime that I learnt the existence of the returned twenty rupees, and wouldn'tfour-letter words which did not mean allow me to take another book with-anything to me then. But the descrip- out giving him twenty-five rupeestions of the l'rocesses leading to the again. No amount of pleading fromvarious encounters in the book were me-that I was a good boy &c--had!sufficiently exciting and I wanted to any effect. -read more. After bribing my friend Of course, since that day, long ago,with a light feed in the college canteen, I have grown up a bit, have more or

got the address of the shop where less settled down in life. Though Ione could get such books and raced seldom read a 'dirty' book now (Ithere that ,very evening. I was rather have read most of them, that is: ifnervous, but the whole process .was you have read a couple of dozen ofridiculously simple; only it was beyond them, you have read them all), Imy means. The shopkee1Jer (some- am still interested in the 'Phenomenonhow even now, I can't think of him and more particularly the cost ofas a bookseller) allowed me to reading. Later I learnt that thebrowse; they were all there, olive- gentleman at Bangalore was a crookgreen covers with frayed edges, and il who could afford! to sell them openlyfew local products, much thinner, (and at very high prices), because hehardly eighty pages. The terms were: and the law had an understandingTwentyJfive rupees down, and if the between them. But even otherwise,book was returned within three days, I a foreign book, in most places, would!would get back twenty rul'ees. For cost you about twelve to ten rul'ees,every day's delay, a fine of one rupee and if you were a known customer,was levied, and if the book was not you could read it" even without anyback within a week, or if it was torn initial deposit, for about two rupees.or brought back in an 'unsatisfactory' The rates for Indian books are juststate, my' money would be gone. My about half the above. And theseweekly allowance in those days was rates are prohibitive. What is mostabout five rupees; at that moment, I galling to an honest customer is thehad less than two rupees with me. I completely arbitrary way in which thepleaded with the gentleman, told him price of a book is lfixed by the book-that I was an honest young man from sellets. One's righteous indignationa good family who would not run is roused when one sees a book clear-away with the book, and offered to ly' marked .900 francs (old francs,leave my fountain->pen,text-books, and that is), and the bookseller demandsthe money I had as a sort of s\lrety .. from you fifteen rupees. Even mak-I wanted to borrqw a book Jot ",just ' ing allowance for the risks involved,tWo'hours.' He said. no. SoT bad. t6~". chancesqf . copies being confiscated

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der will have perhaps to make do never had it so, good. I know it for a =with 'imitations' and 'adaptations' in fact that more people read books, and.the Indian languages, for the simple more books are easily available. Onereason that these would be the cheap- fortunate aspect is that while livingest to buy. Also, it is likely that the standards among the middle classeslower one's income is, the less would have largely risen (or at least theone need such surrogates; and! at cer- monthly incomes), there has not beentain levels, the substance itself would any corresponding increase in the costbe far more easily available (and vast- of pornographic reading. This is pro-ly to be preferred) to the printed bably due to the fact that once' a bookword. The same would be true of the comes in, it stays for a long time; andaristocracy too, though in a different when once the initial cost of the bookdegree; they too would flit effortlessly is realized, there is no temptation forbetween the Word and the Thing, the bookseller to increase the cost oftaking everything in their lordly stride. reading unnecessarily (I am here onlyBut this is only a very rough division thinking of the cost of reading a por-of tastes and aptitudes. The nature nographic book, though the same isof Indian society"is such that it is not largely true of the buying of porno-rigid:ly classified (except in terms of graphy too). It pays the booksellercaste) and one has to be prepared to to keep the price constant. Anotheraccept the inevitable mingling of ap- point to be noted is that quite a fewparently conflicting aptitudes which do books, once they enter the coun-not conform to the above rough classi- try, are sooner Or later printed! in thefication. Thus, it is entirely possible Indian presses, thus making themfor a middle-middle class high-school more generally available. It is, to-teacher, belonging to an orthodox some extent, to the credit of thisBrahmin family of South India (and branGh of business that while priceswho earned less than two hundred have shot up all over the place, thisrupees a month, including what he has symbolised stability. It cost youmade out of private tuitions) to have about ten rupees in 1954; and it evenamong his prized possesions so esote- now costs you about the same. Evenric a work as Anna of the White devaluation did not signi'ficantlyThighs (an actual instance from affect pornography. (Playboy and theamong my acquaintances). On the like are mOre expensive, no doubt,other hand, a widely-travelled, very but they are not, pornography). Sohighly qualified, prosperous -university strictly speaking, pornography isprofessor could relish a book like cheaper now, though the price hasVijay (an indigenous production more Or less remained constant.whose hero seduces seventy-three It is no good condemning porno-women in the course of sixty pages) graphy or thinking it does not exist,and prefer it to such acknowledged Or forming committees for sup-masterpieces as Memoirs of a Plea- pression of· immoral literature. Itsure-loving Man, Experiences of My would do no good to any-Early Life, Streets of Sin, Or. even body if suppressive measures arethose profound books, Lust, and Rape. employed to harass the tired middle-.So, though it is true that the reading aged gentlemen who mainly operatehabits as well the choice of the reading this business. It is a part of our sys-material is largely determined by one's tern, part of OUr intellectual inheri-social position (as well as one's caste, . tance, a way of seeking Truth. Andan aspect of the question professional fortunately enough, governments alsosociologists should go into), one seem to have reconciled themselves toshould always be prepared for the in- the existing set-up: Leave it alone.evitable excerptions. The odds are in favour of the trade

What are the prospects for porno- growing and prospering, though Igraphy in India? This is a question would not commit myself to any opi-that is naturally of great concern to nion about the 'qualiti of the produc-many in the country. Personally tion. That would be a job for a lite-speaking, I should say that we have rary expert, not an amateur sociologist.

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told me this in advance, but I wasblinded by. the,ory"."I have never -since 1940 re-covered the same degree of unitybetween opinion and emation as Ihad possessed from 1914 to 1918.I think that, in permitting myselfthat unity, I had allowed myselfmore of a creed, than scientific in-telligence ca~ justify. To followscientific intelligence wherever itmay lead me had always seemed tome the most imperative of moralprecepts for 'me, and I have followedthis precept even when it has involv-ed a loss of what I myself had takenfor deep spiritual insight."If this is the admission of a lagician

with regard to mysticism which he hasfought all his life, can frankness aboutone's motives in life go any furtherthan this?:

"I wanted to understand andmake others understand; also Iwished to raise a monument bywhich I might be remembered, andon account of which I might feelthat I had not lived in vain."

"Most of my works during theseyears was popular, and was donein order to make money."

47

DoubtsDeeply disturbing are Russell's

doubts about himself. The man whowas nat abashed to write a book carry-ing the title The Conquest of Happi-ness and who writes in this very auto-biography,

"I think people who are unhappyare always proud of being so, andtherefore do not like to be told thatthere is nothing grand about their un-happiness. A man who is melancholybecause lack of exercise has upset hisliver always believes that it is thelass of God Or the menace of Bolshe-vism, or some such dignified causethat makes him sad",

seems to have been often on theedge of despair and for ever hauntedby the thought of suicide. The manwho loved and was loved by so manywomen seemed to be far ever sufferingthe pain of solitude :

"The sea, the stars, the night windin waste places mean more to me thaneven the' human beings I love best,

creative as a philosopher but ever sincehis early youth, and not only in abs-tract and large ideological issues butalso in day-to-day party politics; thatthough an Earl, his social consciencemade him give up much of his proper-ty and led him to experiepce frequentdifficulties of a financial nature. Again,what one did not know is that he hadthe fine sensibilities of a poet in thematter of human relations and the deepspiritual doubts about oneself whi,Chagonise the saint. That he was amaster of English prose for the com-munication of impeccably rationalideas is of course well known to all hisreaders; that he can also express him-self in the vein of a romantic lyricistis a discovery one makes.

Russell's autobiography has beencompared by the publishers themselveswith Rousseau's Conjessions. This doesnQt seem to be altogether happy, asconfession implies a sense of guilt orsin wqich is the one thing one neverfinds the slightest trace of even whenRussell is talking about his doubtsabout himself. If it is the candour towhich one is making reference, it istrue that at times the biblical sim-licity of the style of narration gives itthe same character of truthfulness asthat other and very different autobio-graphy, that of Gandhi. Of course,Russell is candid about his amorouslife too-incidentally, has anybodyever before printed the photographs ofall his mi~,tresses along with all hiswives ?-but one might find it to bemuch less exciting than his admissionswith regard to his own mode of think-ing. It is when the great exponentof rationalism writes passages' as fol-laws that one is overwhelmed by thedeep humility that such candour callsfor:

"In my secand marriage, I hadtried to preserve that respect for mywife's liberty which I thought thatmy creed enjoined. I found, how-ever, that my capacity for forgive-ness and what may be called Chris-tian love was not equal to the de-mands I was making on it, and thatpersistence in a helpless endeavourwould do much harm to me, whilenot achieving the intended good toothers. Anybody else could have

""The Autobiography of BertrandRussell.

Volume II, 1914-1944.Gearge Allen & Unwin Ltd. 1968.

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

The Complete WASHOK RUDRA

IT is doubtful if Russell himselfwould accept as meaningful the con-

cept of "a complete man", Completeman implies a normative idea aboutthe elements that go into the makingof a man, and these elements are notobjectively given but could vary or dis-appear according to the concept ofman one has. While lacking in philo-sophical rigour a normative attitudetowards what constitutes human es-sence has been a very strang current invarious trends of modernism sincethe renaissance. And we shall permitourselves this not strictly rigorous useof the adjective 'complete' to describethe most powerful impression that isleft of the man after the reading of hisstill incomplete autobiography"". Therehave been many great philosophersand scientists during the present

• century; but can we think of anybodyelse with the vast range over whichRussell commanded a knowledgeequal to that of any narrow spe-cialist in anyone of its parts? Do weknow of anybody else, who, alangsidebeing the founder of one of the mastdifficult branches of modern know-ledge, also led such an eventful publiclife and lived such a rich 'private life?Of course, We knew already abou~Russell. the writer of Principia Mathe-

r matica, being the same conscientiousobjector who courted imprisonmentduring the First World War and waschased out of Cambridge; and thesame immoralist whose works weredescribed by a prosecution lawyer inthe United States as "lecherous, libidi-nous, lustful, venerous, erotomaniac,aphrodisiac, irreverent, narrow mind-ed, untruthful and bereft of moralfiber". But what we did not know, atleast many of us did not know, i~ thathe has taken passionate and active in-terest in palitics, not only during hisdeclining years when he was no more

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

Like the first volume the secondvolume of the autobiography also is - ,"at the same time a brilliant portraitgallery. In this volume we get inti-mate glimpses of Lawrence and Witt-genstein and some references to T.S.Eliot, curious for the invariably patro-nising tone in which they are made.I for one took quite some time toreCOver from the shock of the follow-ing footnote on page 1 8: "1 spokethis to T. S. Eliot, who put it into'The Waste Land.'''

There must be very few among themillions of admirers of Russell's writ-ings who can judge on their own thevalue of his works in the field ofmathematical logic and philosophy.Their acquaintance with Russell ismainly through his other writings. Itcomes as a stab on the back' for allsuch readers that Russell should him-self describe these other writings aspot-boilers, written to make money.

The style of narration reflects accu-rately the unity that bound togetherthe many lives of this singular man.From the dizzy heights of mathema-tical logic to the depths of despair atthe sight of his fellow beings' propen-sity for hatred and blood thirst and---thence to the scented fields of erotic _passions, the transitions to and frotake place frequently, in thecourse of the same paragraphwithout a j~rring note, with the easeof a maestro's fingers moving up anddown the scales of tara, udara andmudara of the sitar, and as a constantaccompanying resonance we have thedry humour born of ripe wisdom and"autumnal sadness" (a favourite phraseof Russell's) so characteristic of theman-one can almost hear the familiaroracking voice. Only now and thendoes the undertone of humour cry-stallise itself into a pearl of witticism-there are matchless gems strewn allover the place .which alone wouldmake the book excellent reading.

It would be wrong to say Russellhas lived an exemplary life: fewpeople would have the genius forlifemanship that would be called forto follow the example. What is moreappropriate is to say that his life is a·masterpiece of the art of living, asymphony that is finished.

lacked in this respect. In his world,sexual abstinence is a mutilation .in-flicted on one's personality, and com-plete sexual fidelity an absurdity whichcannot have any place in any reallycivilised community of men andWOmen. We have delicious passageslike the following:

"Ottoline and Colette used to comealternately.. I discovered a methodof smuggling out letters by. enclosingthem in the uncut pages of books ..Before I invented this device 1 foundanother by which 1 could incorporatelove-letters to Colette into letters whichwere read by the Governor of theprison. 1 professed to be readingFrench Revolutionary Memoirs and tohave discovered letters from the Giron-din Buzot to Madame Roland."

Such stark statements as"1 sought about for some other

WOmanto relieve my unhappiness .. ".Such emotionally charged ones as

"We talked half the might and in themiddle of talk became lovers. Thereare those who say that one shouldbe prudent, but I do not agree withthem. We scarcely knew each other,and yet in that moment began forboth of us a relation profoundly seri-ous and profoundly important, some-times happy, sometimes painful, butnever trivial .... ".

LettersLike the lfirst volume, the second

volume also contains a good part con-sisting of letters; it also has got seve-ral breaks in the continuity of narra-tion. The autobiography (,annot cer-tainly be treated as an adequate bio-graphical documentation on the lifeof the author. But WOeto those cri-tics who grumble on this .account.What does it matter if we are nottold in detail the circumstances thatled to his rupture with his secondwife? And why cant if some of theletters are less interesting than othersand do not contribute much to thelinear chronological history that somereaders expect of a life story? Anycomplaint about such supposed defi-ciencies can only reveal the critic'sincapacity to appreciate how big a fareit is that is offered.

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And the writer of Principia Mathe-matica, the monument that would in-deed make him remembered with Aris-totle and Plato, had times when hecould write: "When I survey my life,it seems to me to be a useless one .. "

If I find the amorous part of therecord relatively less exciting, that isnot because of any lack of interestinghappenings or any lack of completecandour, but just th~ contrary. Russellwrites about the various comings andgoings of women to and from his life,about his various profound and fri-volous affairs and marriages in sucha matter of fact way, in an even styleof such consummate skill that one isleft with the effect of being unknow-ingly persuaded (if not already know-ingly so) about the correctness of thearguments he put forward so lucidlyin his Marriage and Morals. Hewould not have been a full man if he

FRONTIER

and I am conscious that human affec-tio·n is to me at bottom an attempt toescape from the vain search for God".The man who, now in his nineties, isstill trying to do all he can to save

~ human civilisation from self-inflictedannihilation had moments when hethought:

"There is darkness without andwhen I die there will be darkness with-in. There is no splendour, no vast-ness, anywhere; only triviality for amoment and then nothing. Why livein such a world. Why even die?"

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48

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

nine years of his life in a zoo whichhas been described as a place wherewild animals have an opportunity towild animal have an oppotunity tostudy human beings without beingshot. During the remaining sixtyyears, the reviewer has had enoughexperience of his own kind to becomea confirmed believer in the essentialnon-violence of animals, contrastedwith the built-in violence in man.But he is inclined to agree with theauthor that the controlled, shooting ofanimals, particularly when the purposeis the extermination of pests, such asman-eaters, cattle-lifters or destroyersof crops, is a highly laudable pursuit.On this score, the recently formed"Association for Preservation of WildGame in West Bengal", deserves widepopular support, since one of its dec-lared aims is the shooting of the noto-rious man-eaters of the Sunderbans.But Mr Jit Roy also tells us that thetrue sportsman has another aim; thecollection of worthwhile ,trbphies.Which proves that the bandit and themissionary are not very far apart. Weshould not forget however that Aris-totle considered banditry as a legiti-mate means of acquiring wealth.

So far as our author is concerned,for all his forty years of banditry histotal haul is not very impressive. May-be he has not given us a complete in-ventory, having in mind a second oreven a third book, following the prac-tice of most shikar writers. In anycase, he eminently succeeds in achiev-ing what he sets out to do, as he tellsus in the Author's Note, namely, 'torecord interesting encounters with ani-mals'. There is in addition a sizableamount of natural history, thrown infor good measure.

But~ his aesthetic susceptibilityseems to have got the better of hisnatural history when he describes thehyena as 'the most ghoulish quadrupedin the ·jungle'. The author's charge-sheet against this useful scavengercomprises carrion-eating, cannibalismand eating alive helpless fawns. Ishe not aware that the glorious big catsare not particularly squeamish abouteating the flesh of their kith and kin,that they consume their kills by instal-ments allowing them to turn into car-

.49.

"Banditry"The reviewer confesses that he is no

more than .•n arm-chair reader ofshikar books. But he spent the first

ris who had gone to the place to getthat particular man-eater. Such idiocymust have filled that gourmet of aleopard with nausea. But the love-liest story of all is that of a PeepingTom of a tiger" an exception to thegeneral rule, who watched from ahide-out in a bush a village bellebathing in a jungle stream. As soonas the young woman (no LadyGodiva she ') caught sight of the im-pudent beast she threw a stone at himto teach him a lesson. The result wasa brief confrontation, from the effectsof which the prudish woman soon re-covered. But it is not on recordwhether or not the tiger was blindedby wrathful heaven as a punishmentfor his prurience .

The author has also had thrillingencounters with the sloth bear- and hasshot deer and antelope aQd thoughhe has never gone after gharrials andmuggers (both known commonly ascrocodiles) , he reveals considerableknowledge of their way of life. Peo-ple who live near rivers should heedthe author's warning that these bulkyamphibians, .who seem to move veryclumsily on land, can run faster 'thanthe average man, theft only handicapbeing that they cannot tum at sp.eed.

One of the most useful chapters inthe book for novices in hunting is thatheaded "Messages in the Dust", parti-cularly useful being the drawings ofpug-marks of tigers, wild boars anddeer. But, for sheer story-telling,two chapters stand out from the restof the book, namely, "Ghoulies, Ghos-ties and Greepy-Crawlies" and "Ran-dom Reminiscences".

The author pays a deserved tributeto jungle people who live very closeto wild animals and regard for whomwas instilled in him very early in hislife by his father. He has, however,little patience with the arm-chair cri-tics who charge with cruelty dedicatedhunters, who hunt strictly accordingto rules, while sparing 'the poachers.and the butchers' who shoot fromjeeps with spotlights.

No Paper TigerHIRAN KUMAR SANYAL

Shikar Tales by The BarrelBy JIT RoyPearl Books.Price Rs. 3.00.

(.(.TIGER hunting", says the author. of this book, "has a mystique"

a thrill, of its own-a thrill that neverpalls". He fully succeeds in communi-cating the thrill to the reader not onlyin the case of the tiger but in the caseof other animals whether hunted bythe author himself or his father whomhe describes as 'a great shikari' and to

• Jl whom the book is dedicated. Thiswill be a revelation to many, like thereviewer, who have come under thespell of Professor P. C. Roy withoutever suspecting that this scholarlylittle man, radiating sweetness andlight, was cast in the mould of a

• Nimrod. The following incidents re-veal his heroic stature.

When stalked by a probable man-eating tiger on a jungle road, Profes-sor Roy, who was put wise to the

-.([ situation by the author, bundled all themembers of the family into his carand drove off to safety, neither paterfamilias nor the son betraying by theirmanner that anything was wrong. Onanother occasion he was nearly gotat by a tiger he had fatally wounded

r by "a shot from a machan, only luckand cool courage saving him. Thatsuch an experienced shikari should,even for a change, so far forget him-self as to poke with the barrel of his

" rifle a bush in which a tiger was sup-posed to lie is difficult to believe.But he actually did so at least once inan unaccountable fit of infantile brink-manship.

One incident narrated in the bookfully upholds the reputation of thetiger as a gentleman. In this case thetiger quenched its thirst from a troughof fresh water beside a buffalo, tiedas a bait, without touching the latter.An even greater gentleman must have

-<: been the man-eating leopard that leftits visiting card between two cots outin the open on which slept two shilca-

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SEPTEMBER 28, t 968

or artistic medium into existence. Bythe mid-twenties The Atonement of ..,Gosta Berlin and The Blue Angel hadbeen shot on the continent, and: Eisen-stein had given in his The BattleshipPotemkin a masterly demonstration ofmontage, "that formal juxtaposition ofimage not necessarily related in ob-ject, time and space, but which, whenplaced in plastic symmetry together orsequentially on the screen, yields aspedfic idea". In Calcutta's filmlandDevaki Bose was then endeavouringto simulate realism through the crea-tion of certain sound effects in TheFlame of the Flesh. The unfolding ofa simple story interspersed with suchsound effects as a crowd's hum orhorses' hooves in the background byactually planting a group behind thescreen is reported to have created asensation.

The traditional Bengali cinema withits literary overtones really came intoits own in the thirties when, with theemergence of sound, it became easierfor the directors to exploit all thegamut of human emotions and the richtonal quality of the language. Withthe tremendous, almost buccaneeringdrive and energy of a young producercalled B. N. Sircar behind them,Devaki Bose and Pramathesh Baruathe two young stalwarts, scaled ne~heights. They opened up new hori-zons, the former, with devo-tional subjects like the livesof the well known poet-saints Vidya-pati and Chandidas, and the latter, thedebonair actor-director, with the ex-ploration of contemporary social them-es-Dev.das, Adhikar, Mukti etc. Bothin their different ways succeeded increating an intensity and a high-1'0wer-ed emotional realism. In the case ofDevaki Kumar Bose it was devotionalstemming from an intense integratio~of drama, song and dance, those in-separable mystical entities held byFauvion Bowers to have remained asa kind of invisible law in India sincethe time of Kalidasa. In the case ofBarua the intensity was pathological,stemming from a morbid death-wish,a romantic nugatory love of doom.In spite of overt preoccupation withsocial problems, Barua's films, styiis-ed to the core, reflected the maso-

KARUNA SANKAR RAY

Bengali Cinema:Tradition And Talent

THE birth, growth and develop-'merit of the cinema in Bengal

followed patterns broadly similar tothose elsewhere. At its inception herein 1898, Hiralal Sen, the dedicatedpioneer in the lfield of film-making,purchased his photographic apparatusand was content to photograph playsat the classic theatre. While the inno-vation was still in its infancy in 1902or thereabout, the indefatigable show-man, J. F. Madan, regaled crowds atthe Calcutta Maidan through his bio-scope shows very much in the mannerof presenting a circus or a pageant.The typical film showman of the timein Bengal, as elsewhere in the world,was the photographer-exhibitor. Later,when the first flush of excitement andenthusiasm over the innovation' ex-hausted itself, here, as elsewhere,emerged one or two talented persona-lities who purged )he new-found medi-um of its initial crudeness, impartedto it .some sort of form as well asstructure and sustained interest in thecinema by a more adult and intelligenttreatment than any witnessed sofar. Dhiren Ganguli, affectionatelycalled D.G. by the grateful generationsof film-goers in Bengal, was one suchpersonality, a sort of George Meliesin the Indian context plus a lot of re-formative ardour, infusing in his workhis sparkling wit and inventiveness,directing his uninhibited and trench-ant satire at the sham, the snobbish-ness and the diehard conservatismendemic in the Indian society of thetime. D.G's England Returned mark-ed the beginning of a new epoch infilm-making.

It has to be point~d out, however,that the Bengali Cinema of the silentera or even of the so-called NewTheatre-dominated Golden Thirtiesnever acquired a distinct and uniqueartistic identity like its counterpart inAmerica where nrst Griffith and thenChaplin created a new vocabulary andconjured up an entirely new language

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rion, that among tigers papa is alwayson the lookout for a dinner off hisnew-born babies and that lionesseshave been observed to conduct nur-sery class by holding down their vic-tims so that the cubs can tear offchunks of living meat. But wild ani-mals, wth rare exceptions, kill forfood and not for the collection oftrophies, nor, since they have neverheard about Malthus, for applying a'positive check' on the growth of theirpopulation for the preservation of thebalance of nature.

All told Mr Jit Roy has written avery readable book ,which deservedmuch better treatment at the printer'shands. To one long in city pent, likethe 'reviewer, reading this book hasbeen like inhaling a breath of freshair from the wilds. It is an exhilara-ting, but, unfortunately, all too briefexperience. Surely the author, avery competent writer, could havewritten a book of much greater appealif only he had' used a larger canvas,revealing wider vistas of the forests andthe countryside which were the scenesof the encounters with wild animalsnarrated in this book and of his manylong treks and lonely vigils. The re-viewer looks forward to all these inMr Jit Roy's next book.

Ph

48-

FRONTIER

ly developed artistic fullness and neveracquired a distinctly aesthetic charac-ter. It remained! what it essentiallywas at the autset, a crude device, apeg to hand tagether a number afattractive songs. The mativation afcharacter was inevitably shallaw, thesequence af actians and events almastalways defied the ordinary rules ofcamman sense, and sentimental slap-piness typefied the general arder.

v) Films with carnic themes :' Theavertly carnic was started aff by Baruahimself when he made the then expJo-sive Rajat Jayanti. Later, from theforties onward, the genre became in-creasingly popular with a string ofcampetent camedians araund. Thestory here, as in the musicals, wasmerely an excuse for putting. togetherpatently comic situatians and much ofthe laughter was de.rived fram thecasting of the well-knawn camediansin stereotyped roles played with anexag,!!erated emphasis fram becinningto. end. Despite the flat situations theaccasianally ingenious direction, asaf Satyen Base in Bar;atri and TapanSinha in Tonsil, and campetent, pro-fessional acting produced same nat-able successes in this field, successesmare popular than artistic.

Gods and Goddessesvi) Films with mythalagical the-

mes: At the inceptian of thecinema in Bengal this was the mostdaminating genre, as familiar storiesfrom the pages af scriptures and my-thalogy were exrpected to. have thewidest appeal. However trick shotscauld only be Clumsily executed in an- •dent Tollygunge studias, the gim-micks rarely came off and gads andgoddesses as a result never reallyfaund faVour amangst the paying cus-tamers. A thin line af mythologicalshowever survived, mainly aimed at themofussiI film-gaers and the mare de-vout Hindu ladies and that, even after

ing stars af the day. This boy-meets- cinema, staries sametimes WOvengirl theme is however capable of many round well-knawn musicians af thevariations, and the latter have been past like Jadu Bhatta, sometimesvery often determined by the acting based an a work af fiction where themores of the leading actor and actress. protagonist was' a musician ar a singerIf one particular combination has as in Dhuli. Unlike its counterpartmade the film a commercial success, it - in the West the Bengali musical rare-means that the same formula with thesame team will be repeated in succes-sian till the team has exhausted itsbox-affice appeal.

Amongst the faremost lfilms af thegenre may be mentioned Ekti Raat,Sabar Uparey, Sagarika, Agni-Pari-ksha, Pathey Holo Deri, Chalachal andPanchatapa in _the fifties. Made to.farmula and aimed exclusively at box-affice success the gehre was unlikelyto produce any aesthetically satisfyingfilm. Occasionally hawever, becauseof sensitive directian and - extremelynatural acting, a good script ,survivedits overt romanticism and! we had anend-product -like Chalachal ar Pancha-tapa of Asit Sen. In spite of theworn-out ramanticism of the formerand the supeJ1ficial flashiness of thelatter, there was much in bath to. cam-mend itself and within theirbuilt-in limitatians bath films attainedunusual technical excellence and for-mal saphistication. In general how-ever this genre,. viewed retraspectively,has remained impart ant and interest-ing in so. far as it was indicative ofthe psycholagy of the film-goers in thefifties and sixties.

iv) Musicals: In the early daysaf the talkies, wh()n the cinema wasregarded as a medium akin to. varietyentertainment, films revelled insangs, chasen to. suit every maadfram sadness to. elation. Graduallythe realisation dawned that indiscri-minate sangs were, cinematically view-ed, a sure disadvatage, a hindrance to.the gradual unfalding of actian. NirenLahiri's' Bhabikal in this respect mark-ed a line af departure fram the can-ventianal trend.' StilI later DevakiBase's Pathik, in daing withaut songsshawed the wind af change in Ben-gali cinema. Henceforth anly certainkinds of films retained Or even inten-si'fied the emphasis an sc",gs. As pub-lic enthusiasm far the classical,pseudo-classical or period-music wax-ed, staries came to. be adapted for the

stereatyped pattern af the sacial-cum-romantic themes and this pattern con-tinued even well into. the sixties. Sameaf the natable 'films af this genre inthis latest :phase were Sister Niveditaand Raja Rammohan of Bejoy Base.Qualitatively these biagraphicals rare-ly achieved highdistinctian. Veryaften, intent an cashing in an sangs,the praducers and the directars turn-ed the biagraphicals into veritable mu-sicals, often purveying rich periad-music in a mare diluted manner. Thesuper-structure af sangs inevitablyrested on the very salid thaugh un-attractive foundatian af didacticisminlaid with rich literary avertanes.Hawever, despite the built-in limita-tions af the genre and tendentiaus di-rection, accasianally ane ar twa filmsstaod aut in the ald-time-manner be-cause af the sheer magnificence of act-ing and the emotianal invalvement ofthe directars. Undaubtedly, BhagwanSrikrishna Chaitanya af Devaki Bose,shat in the early 'fifties was such, a film.

Boy Meets Girliii) Films with romantic themes :

This genre is canfined to. patentlyromantic subjects and makes no.attempt to. maintain even a superficialresemblance to. real 'life. The story isaf secandary interest and is aftenused as an excuse to delineate a stringaf romantic situatians and spin aut ahappy ending. And the episades mareaften than nat fail to. pass the not-taa-stringent test af credibility. Thelfirst encounter af the hero and theheraine aften takes place in unexpect-ed circumstances, aften the starystarts aff with the protaganists swear-ing hostility to. each ather in Benedickand Beatrice fashian, but predictablythere is a turn of events fallawed by achange af heart and before lang -thehero and the heraine swear vows afundying layalty to each ather. Theninevitably fallaw love scenes reekingwith implausible and uncanvincing,immature and. clayingly sentimentaldialogues uttered in unreal surround-ings. The chain af causation in thesefilms is slight and the emphasis inpaint af script, dialague and directianrests heavily on the hero and theheraine inevitably played by the lead-

SEPTEMBER 28 J 968

thos and tragedy besetting the life of apoor white-collared worker. Thencame Jalshaghar, and Devi, and thisincredible director thereafter went onto produce films like Kanchenjunghaand Charulata.

In the wake of Satyajit Ray othersfollowed, Rittwick Ghattak, MrinalSen, Rajen Tarafdar and a host ofothers breaking into the exclusiveworld of the old-timers. The resulthas, however, been neither spectacularnor revolutionary despite Mr Ghatta-k's Ajantrik and Subarnarekha,Tapan Sinha's artistically modestlysuccessful Kabuliwala, Lauhakapatand: overtly poetic Atithi, but perhapsthe way has been shown. Formulasare being gradually eschewed, clichesare slowly disappearing and films orat least a minority of them are becom-ing more and more individual andoriginal. The histbrically importantthing is that with Satyajit Ray's adventthe 'first break-through has been made,the Bengali cinema has come of ageand a new 'film-sense has grown in themore intelligent section of the film-goers. Surely this is a healthy sign,as also a sign for the future. '

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dozen or so Ray films which followedPather Panchali, while not alwaysmatching the first careless rapture,showed the sureness -of touch, the im-pecoable mastery oV1er the mediumand the' consummate-craftsmanshi:rwhich comes with experience. And allthese films belong to different genres.Pathar Panchali in its stark realism,in its nebulous formlessness and dis-cursiveness, , closely 'resembling anep~c, in the evocation of the momentsof idyllic beauty as well as in quiettragic splendour was simultaneouslythe de~finitivefilm of a periodJ as wellas of complete timelessness. A para-jito, its sequel, revelled in its des-cription of Varanasi and the caressingsensuousness of its treatment anticipa-ted Chris Marker's Valparaiso, andthe delicate beauty of the, lonely

-forest scenes, the glades Or the hillsand the ·sea-shore in Apur-Sansar orthe rising music in its last sequence,showed a 'masterly insight into themystique of the "Tenth Muse". InRay's hands a comic fantasy like Pa-rash Pathar, while matching the satiri-cal ferocity of Tout L' or Du Mondesurpassed Clair in its evocation of pa-

54

the death of its early pioneer and alater s'pecialist, Ph ani Burma.

Talking about the pre-Satyajit Rayera in Bengali cinema, or for that mat-ter about contemporary Bengali ifilmsproduced and directed in the tradi-tional manner, a point to rememberis that this cinema or even the bestof it never really acquired a distinctartistic identity of its own. Heavilyliterary as perhaps it was bound tobe in a literature-conscious milieu, itbecame only the purveyor of Bengalifiction in a different medium. Thebasic incongruity of the cinema beingdeployed for purely literary ends es-caped detection in the eyes of a peo-ple fond of their literature, and un-able as a result to impose any non-literary criteria. '

With Satyajit Ray's emergence withPather panchali in 1955 the cinema inBengal became fully cinematic for the'first time the nature ana scope of thenew art-form appeared in shining andirridescent outlines and for the firsttime the idea emerged: of its true -pos-sibilities, .of its unlimited power ofexploration and the incomparablylimpid beauty it could master. The

,t111

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SEPTEMBER 28, 1966

MAHIM ROODRO

55

Add to all this the condition of theroads. Most of them can no morebe described by that name-stretchesafter stretches of holes, cracks, dug-ups and loose stones. When the uglyelephant of the State Transport Cor-poration or the green ladies of theprivate companies dance their wayalong these roads, if there was anypleasure left in journeying from oneplace to another, it's gone. You onlyknow that your bones rattle and theinnards of your tummy shiver andshake in bilious ominousness.

Such, alas, such is the condition ofus the bus riders and pedestrians ofCalcutta. You make an appointmentbut can I promise to keep it, can I

, promise to be in time? Well, don'texpect such refinements, eh? Youwant to meet a friend, call on a rela-tive, visit a sick person in the hospi-

cles. They wash, them, shine them,and decorate them with all kinds offlowery designs. Maybe it is not upto everybody's taste, but next to thoseugly monsters that the State transportplies, these blue and green privatebuses 10bked like pretty teen-aged girls.What is it that makes the State trans-port employees disregard their vehi-cles so badly? Why do they keepthem in such dirty ramshackle condi-tion? Truly, they are junks worththrowing away on' to the Dhapa fields.So, we welcomed the private buses.For apart from bringing relative reliefto the eye, they took some of the loadoff the State buses. Unbelievable,sometimes we even got a chance to sitin them.

But what in the name of the al-mighty has happened nOw to them?They ,have chosen the State buses astheir models. The courtesy they usedto show has gone, their careful driv-ing has disappeared and the shine isfading. They are now driving asdangerously as the State bus drivers .Often they rush along narrow crowdedstreets as though they were in forthe Grand Prix and on wide' open de-solate ~x\pa11$es. Nobody seems toobject, 'Perhaps everybody is afraid to.The dsk to' the lives of the 'People onthe street seems to be nobody's busi-ness.

Private BusesWhen the private buses came on the

road again, well, they brought somerelief. One, visually. These 'Private-bus drivers and conductors seem tohave a S'pecial feeling for their vehi-

Of Pain

timate mission, and you cannot afforda taxi and you do not possess a car.If you went in freshly launderedclothes, now they are crushed, if youhad started off after a good bath, nowyou are smelling of somebody else'ssweat.

And if the agony would stop there.Often you get into a bus, crowded ofcourse-it's always crowded-and yougrope around for the .rod above tohold on to, and lo! there is none justabove where you are standing. Look-ing up in despair, you try to sort outthe cause of this discrepancy. Ob-serve, and you shall know. You seemarks and holes on the ceiling, screw-holes that indicate that the rod wasthere. But, some day it had comeoff loose, and 'Probably got bent ortwisted, sO they removed that part ofthe rod. Clean job, but no replace-ment. You desperately try to keepyour balance. You then becomeaware that the- driver is dancing akind of Scottish reel with his bus, heis weaving in and out, rig~t and leftin the crowded streets as though theywere open fields, desolate and 'pretty.He also seems to have a special likingfor putting on the brake suddenly andaccelerating immediately after, andlikes to play special gear games. Youcan't keep your balance, yOUare fall-ing <1Vereverywhere. And of courseyou are carrying a packet in your lefthand (you had to buy, no choice) andan umbrella in your right hand (itwas raining when you left home).

All the while, ot course, the busis belching black smoke from its be-hind, a gruesome contribution to thebad health of the inhabitants of thecity. One doesn't have to be a doc-tor to tell that that smoke does notpossess the qualities of mountan air.

Transports

CALCUTT A buses are unique-the State buses. I have never been

able to work out how it is that theywere designed for a cold country.Haven't you noticed the windows?They can only be opened half. Aslight oversight on the part of thedesigners? Perhaps. But in a hot

•. country, and in Calcutta where thebuses are always jampacked, we need

i •as much ventilation as possible, andwhat sense does it make to keep thewindow-openings so small that one

• gets only the minimum of fresh airfrom outside? And they don't alwayswork, Sometimes they remain closed,at other times, wouldn't close. Whenopen, you have no choice but to getsoaked when it rains.

To ride in our buses is an e~peri-ence. One can only thin'k that in

•'Jur previous lives we had done suchaweful things that God said, for yournext life you have to be born inCalcutta and ride State transport bus-es. It is a real punishment indeed,

-.I for any time of the day or evening;wherever you are, they are full, full,full. Thinking you'd escape it, thecrowd and the rush, and the fight andthe unpleasantness, you went out at

.• an hour when there 'can't be an officerush. I am afraid you had made a

-mistake; there is no off time-it'salways crowded. And what crowds,what tortures! You fight your wayin, you fight for the four inches of rodsp,ace to cling onto, you fight for yourexistence more or less, and when youreach your destination, you 'fight fightfight for your way out. You becomerude, you become selfish; you arenot the type to wish to cause troubleto others but now you become vicious,you jab somebody in the side, youpress your bottom against somebodyelse, and heave, heave your waythrough until 'finally you eject out ofthe bus. All this is inflicted on you,

.... not because you have committed somegrave crime but simply becauseyou decide to go from spot X to spotY, on a perfectly normal and legi-

•

Railways and shipyards. heavy and light industries. transport and agriculture have all developedbecause of the sinews of steel provided by Hindustan Steel. Hindustan Steel will soon havean annual designed capacity to produce 4.4 million tonnes of salable steel and 627.000 tonnesof pig iron .. Besides Hindustan Steel provides a wide range of coal chemicals and largequantities of fertilizers.

about. But they are powerless. Thosewho ride taxis or possess cars, theywill never know what I am talkingabout, for they have no idea as to whatit means actually to be inside one ofthese vehicles. And here lies thetragedy. Those who run our trans-port ride cars. Transport ministers,chief secretaries, and administratorsdo not know the inside of a bus. Ourleaders and our rulers--communists,Congressites, progressives or reaction-aries-they all ride cars. That isour trouble. Yes, that is our trouble.We are run by car-riders and aircondi-tionwallahs. And when they foam ~in the mouth in the cause of thepeople, they do not know what theyare talking about. Yes, if Mr DharmaVira has to travel even one day ina No. 5 bus during office hours, Ibelieve he will resign his post and goaway to Punjab: And, if Mr JyotiBasu had to swing his way to Dal-housie Square holding on to the exte-rior of a b~s precariously, he will4cperhaps be ill.

Hindustan Steel has also developed a hardcore of technical experts, the Central Engi-neering and Design Bureau, which designedthe expansion programmes of Durgapur andRourkela. Its Bhilai Design Cell planned the2.5 million-tonne expansion and the currentexpansion of Bhilai. Besides. HindustanSteel's corps of scientists are engaged in theconstant search for newer steels.Hindustan Steel & the future.With' the four plants well on the way towardshigher levels of production. Hindustan Steel'ssales will soon be over RS.1 crore a day. Tomaintain and improve such standards of per-formance Hindustan Steel will continue toinnovate and introduce new technology andnewer and better products that will further con-tribute to the country's pace of development.

FRONTIER

good length of time, just at the momentof departure you will be told it's notgoing to be 24 but will be 25. Justlike that. And vice versa. This hap-pens every other day. And the cli-max was the other day, when in thesame tram the first class was marked25 and the second class 24. Peoplein their rush did not notice the fan-tastic arrangement. OrlIy when thetram was about to leave were they toldthat it would not go on route 25 buton 24. You can imagine the confusionand then the huge row between thetram company staff and the passengers,and then between the first-class pas-sengers and the second-class passen-gers. Or, as other instances, you aresitting on a No. 25, cosy and settled;and suddenly you find that you aregoing on the No. 24 route. Whathappened? They changed the number,but, here's fun, didn't tell the pas-sengers.

But alas, all these lines of lamentand ranting, who will read them?Readers who travel by trams andbuses, they know what I am talking

Hindustan Steel knows how.The four plants of Hindustan steel employ thelatest technology and equipment obtainedfrom advanced countries such as the UK. USA.Germany. USSR. Japan and Canada. Butwhat is of greater importance is that Indianengineers have mastered this new technology-even innovated and enected improvements.

Self· reliance :.Hindustan Steel shows how.During the initial construction stage. most ofthe equipment Installed were new to Indianengineers Despite this. they are maintainedand serviced today entirely by the plants' owndepartments. Besides. most of the componentparts that were previously imported. are nowbeing fabricated in the country

A- quick appraisal 01Hindustan Steel-

tal, all in the normal pattern of things,and you are landed with the experi-ence of this utter struggle. This isCalcutta. This is the Calcutta of thebus rider and the pedestrian. Here,to reach a friend is a struggle, to goto office a humiliating experience, togo out of the house infinite suffering,th,\lt is, if you do not have car andcannot afford the taxi. Taxis costmoney-twenty times the bus fare.

And then, the trams. Nationalisa-tion, State control, ah! Glory gloryhallelujah! That will improve allthings now, we thought. But alas!nothing of the sort. The trams aregoing the way of the buses. Everyday they look older, dirtier and moreramshackle. And their efficiency isreaching new lows.

A simple thing will show the cal-lousness and idiocy that pervades theiradministration nowadays. Let's takeBallygunj terminus. Office-goers, com-ing from outside Calcutta, and thoseliving around get to this terminus tooccupy the tram-cars. If you have gotinto a No. 24 tram, and been waiting a

RINDUSTAN ST••••part of the grand design

for self-reliance and progressRegd. Office. Ranch;

Plants: Rourkela • Bhllai • DurgapurAlloy Steels Plant. Durqapllr

56 SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

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cials', their "realism" was too maud-lin, cluttered with statements aboutpatent social evils like casteism, crack-ing up of the joint family system, classconflict etc. The better Bengali filmsof the period, however, mostly belong-ed to this category. And what is more,an analysis of the genre reveals the fastexpansion of the frontiers of the Ben-gali cinema. Though the achievementin concrete terms did not match allthe sound and fury, a lfilm like Kavi,with its intensity of doomed love andits poetry of pain, was remark-able. Incidentally, Kavi stands mid-way between the two broad genres,'the socials' and 'the romantic lfilms'.In preoccupation it is unashamedlyromantic, focussing itself on the rela-tionship between a strolling poet-loverand his lass. But .des.pite the delibe-rately heightened emotionalism of itstreatment, it has a ring of authenticityand truth, derived in the main from anote of weird, almost primitive, fata-lism struck in an extremely realisticmilieu of the crumbling rural societyin Bengal of a particular period.Similarly, the crisp acting of the some-what arty Udayer Pathey and the cutand: thrust of its dialogue added anew dramatic dimension to a mediumin which till then the spoken wordwas not much more than a neutralaid.

ii) Devotional cum biographi-cal themes : While the old Vidyapatiand Chandid:as strain survived, ascould be seen in the films on KaviJoydeb or Sri Chaitanya, amongstothers, an interest in outstanding Ben-gali personalities of the recent pastappeared for the first .time, with thestrong tide of Indian nationalism con-tributing in no small measure to thisdevelopment. Mention may be madein this connection of Modhu Bosewho shot a stirring biographical onMichael Madhusudan. Thereafter,with the gradual popularisation of thebiogrillphical cult, films depicted thelives of Vidyasagar, Rama Krishna,Sri Chaitanya, Rani Rashmoni andKavi Joydeb, amongst others. Gradu-ally the preoccupation of the filmdirectors with outstanding figures ofthe bygone epochs lessened. But anoccasional biographical broke u:p the

Nationalist ArdourWithin the broad genre of "socials"

may also be included films with anovert nationalist .and revolutionaryardour like Pather Dabi, Bhuli-Nai,Bhabi-Kal, Chattagram Astragar Lun-than. and films dealing with the evil ofclass distinctions, like Udayer Patheyof Bimal Roy. A close scrutiny of thefirst category will reveal the flashyrevolutionary ardour to be not so re-volutionary after all and the much glo-rified patriotism to be of a diluted,sentimentalized and: hollow kind. Thefrontier betwen sexual love and pat-riotism is often crossed and recrossedby the protagonists and one stronglysuspects that the revolutionary heroesof the Bengali cinema were themselvesdelightfully confused and muddle-headed individuals, appearing in onesequence as an un:perturbed, distantand: inaccessible band of supermen andin another as love-lorn, as a teen-aged school girl. Seeing the Bengalifilms based on the revolutionary sagaof the anarchists, one becomes doubt-ful about the 'calibre of the anarchistmovement in general. The films ofboth the first and second catego-ries reveal the protagonists as beingsomething of loud gas-bags deliveringdiatribes against the existing socialand political order, and doing preci-ous little besides. Despite satiricalvehemence, the protagonist of UdayerPathe is at bottom not any differentfrom an inveterate romantic hero whomerely' scratches on the veneer of theeffete bourgeois society in the nameof revolution. As Sarat Chandra Chat-terjee's novels formed the staple in-gredients of the broad genre of 'so-

FRONTIER

The first recognition of a woman'sright to have feelings and emotions ofher own came in the cinema of thethirties, notably in the work of Prama-thesh Barua. But the trend in thecinema as well as in literature was setby Sarat Chandra Chatterjee. Barua'sDevdas, for instance, was based on aSarat Chandra's novel. It was a not-able film of this genre-a genre whichflourished later in the forties and fif-ties. In this ~ontext films like Griha-daha, Barad'idi, Kavi, SOrOshi readilycome to mind.

chistic sensibility of a derelict hover-ing on the peri:phery of a chaotic androotless world.

The traditions set up by the NewTheatres in the thirties continued inthe forties and the middle fifties.Broadly, the lfilms could be classifiedin one or other of the followinggenres :-

(i) Films with social themes:Against the background of crude my-thologicals, the gradual switch-over tobroadly social themes with a pronoun-ced realistiq bias was a welcomechange. From slapstick comedy andcrude gimmicks the sincere and seri-ous preoccupation with the Bengalimiddle class was a far cry indeed. Thescreen became increasingly filled withreal-life personalities, and the sordidand squalid contours of drab domes-ticities in middle class suburbia. Thedirectors developed, in particular,fondness for the joint family, etchinglovingly though rarely with consum-mate skill, its complex facade, andunfolding the difficult times, the mount-ing problems of adjustment, the dis-sonant clash and' the ultimate disinte-gration, leaving behind deep and gap-ing scars which would take years toheal. The sentimental nostalgia ofthe directors for a fast disappearinginstitution plus the commercial instinctof the producers brought in its wakemany stereotypes such as the generouselder brother, the selfish younger bro-ther, the self effacing daughter-in-lawand the domineering patriarch. BindurChheley, Nishkriti, Bhanga gara,amongst a host of other lfilms made inthis genre, stood out prominently.This trend amongst the socials perhapsachieved maximum popularity in theearly fifties, throwing up the names ofcertain actors and actresses and creat-ing in the film-goers a short-livedcraze for lfilms depicting the fast-dis-appearing joint family mores. Under-standably, however, a surfeit of filmsproduced within a space of 5 to 6years exhausted the subject and thepopular craze died a natural death.

Then there was- the other kind ofsoci:1ls treating compassionately andwith understanding woman's feelings,her stunted desires, her disappoint-ment in love, its tragedy and pathos.

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SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

57

nists are elected in the coming elec-tions they would do nothing but yieldto the interests of the 'ruling classwhich are protected in the Indian Con-stitution. .They add that the all-outadvocacy of democratic elections isnothing but class collaboration.

Let us examine what Mr Banerjee,a most pronounced Marxist' and theex-Labour Minister, says. He writes,"The Labour Directorate only recom-mends recognition. There being nolaw in West Bengal to compel themanagement to recognise a tradeunion, this recommendation by theLabour Directorate is not lawfull)binding on the management which isfree to accept Or reject it. So if theHSEU had not been recognised bythe HSL management in Durgapur,it was no fault of mine as LabourMinister. "

Does this leave any room to doubtthat the elected legislative body, theMinistry, and the Government De-partments are all academic institutions,so to say, set up only to protect theinterests of the ruling class and tocover it up from the millions ruled.

KUSHAL SENDum Dum Park

OBSERVER

Calcutta

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Hgheraos". Heroics fOr the consump-tion of the toiling masses turned intoa whimper.

Mr Banerjee also made some "un-charitable" remarks about the judi-ciary of India in a speech scheduledto be broadcast by AIR. But when acase was filed against him he with-drew his remarks against the "sacred"judiciary of India and tendered un-qualified apology to his lordship. 'Whocan beat that revolutionary consist-ency?

From Mr Banerjee's rejoinder ofSeptember 14 one thing comes but-that the "inefficiency" of the HSEUcombined with the "over-efficiency"of the Labour Department under thestewardship of Mr Banerjee pre.vent-ed de jure recognition of the HSEUonce more.

Thanks to Mr Subodh Banerjee,the ex-Labour Minister of the ex-UFMinistry in West Bengal, for his can-did confession (Frontier, September14). The China liners, popularlyknown as Naxalites, have been tellingthe people that even if the Commu-

rhe secret of traveRing light to Darjeeling

Durgapur Union

r

I am an admirer of Mr Charan'upta, Calcutta Diarist, for his out-.,okenness and rational approach toifferent subjects in spite of aberra-

tions here and there. But he shouldbe more objective before he runsdown a revolutionary like Mr SubodhBanerjee. Though the charge of in-consistency levelled by Mr Banerjee

... against Charan Gupta is unfounded I- entirely agree with Mr Banerjee that

;bourgeois inconsistencies are now be-ing indulged in by the so-called intel-lectuals of India without the leastscruple. But "proletarian inconsis-tencies of a strange Indian variety" arealso being practised by the left aristo-'crats of India.

If I remember aright, Mr Banerjeeearned tremendous respect at one timefrom the struggling people of WestBengal for his championship of~heraos', but when the matter cameunder discussion in New Delhi on anall-India plane, he made a hundredand eighty degree turn and opposed

.,.1

SEPTEMBER 28, 1968

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CIVIL

24-5597

SEPTEMBER 28,

PHONE:

CALCUTTA-B.

ENGINEERING

CONTRACTORS

ENG INEERS ASSOCIATED

Calcutta,C. R.

the Taki Government College. Oneof the vice-presidents of the Associa-tion belongs to that college. OneProf. S. Das Gupta, who is tije Headof the Department of Economics ofthe college, is a member of the Ex-ecutive Committee of the Association.Taki Government College is hand-somely represented in the 4.ssociation.Why, then, should an employee, whohas to vacate his post, go to the Asso-ciation in tears and relate the storyof his misfortune? If Mr Gayen were/the only victim of the highhandednessof the PSC we might have taken Prof.Das Gupta's arguments as valid. Un-fortunately, another teacher of thesame college had to lose his jobimmediately after the publication ofProf. Das Gupta's letter in Frontier.This gentleman had been serving theEducation Department for more thanfour years in the capacity of a lec-turer in biology and had once beentransferred from one college to ano-ther. Prof. Das Gupta cannot possiblytell us this time that the Associationhad nothing to do. The Association,for example, could "wait upon hisExcellency" and tell him that theactivities of the PSC are highly ob-jectionable. The PSC cannot use aman as "stop gap" for four long years.If a man is unfit, let the PSC say sowithin a month or two. It is theAssociation which can force the PSCto follow the straight path of justice.The Association should be aware ofthe fact that during the last ten yearsmore than ten persons have been vic-timized by the PSC and some areawaiting dismissal..

If the WBGCT A, wants to achievesuccess, it will have to shake off the"wait upon your Excellency" attitudeand demand things with the ultimateaim of getting them. It cannot flat-ter and condemn bureaucracy at thesame time. Keeping the fact in mindthat the Education Department standsfor nepotism corruption and cynicism,the Association should better be afighter, and start a long-term struggleagainst those who, like vampires, aresucking the very blood of those whohave, for centuries, been the buildersof the nation.

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58

Now that Mr Ranjit Kumar Gayen(Frontier, September 14) has request-ed the West Bengal Government Col-lege Teachers' Association' to "waitupon His Excellency the Governor ofthe State of West Bengal" and per-suade His Excellency to believe thatthe public service commission's greatdiscovery that Mr Gayen was not effi-cient (and that too after 2 years 10!months) was nothing short of victimiza-tion, we hope that Prof S. Das Gupta(Frontier, August 31) and othermembers of the Association will takeup the case. Prof. Das Gupta statedthat the Association "possibly couldnot do much" because the physicalinstructor never approached the Asso-ciation. We wonder, why? TheAssociation has its representatives a't

As the press will beclosed during the

Puja holidaysthe next issue of

Frontierwill appear in the third

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