• FEBRUARY 22, 1975 PRICE: SO PAISE Other Page, MARCH OF THE THREESOME 2 ESPITE their bitter hostility the countries of this subcontinent are apt D to display on occasion an· astonishing unity of purpose and direction. WNWARD SPIRAL On the eve of Dr Kissinger's visit to this subcontinent last year. the three lEU sovereign countries of what was previously British India sacked 'their finance SHARMA 5 Ministers. Whether these sacrificial .offerings satisfied ,the American god the governments in Islamabad. New Delhi. and Dacca alon~ know. A similar uniformity is again emerging in. the three countries, though their rurers, as is AND INDIA DURING usual with them, are vehemently denying I it. As the biggest and the mo9l: H RAJ pdwerful country of !the region, India' has taken the lead. One-party and .' BANF.RJEE 7 oq.e-Ieader democracy is well established in this country; age has made it almost respectable. Opposition parties are not banned; there is no necessity for it, ·for t'he youthful supporters of Mrs' Gandhi's party and leadership have been authorised to resort to any m.eans to put them in their places. A nod 8 froni the leadership and the job is done-quietly and without any dust-raising over the legality' and the constitutionality of the suppression. If anyone dares to question such rough-,and-ready tactics, he is at onae dubbed a fascist. and 9 dictatorship appears on the scene in the garb of a defender of democracy. Last month, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman staged a constitutional coup to make himself President of Bangladesh. As Prime Minister he was almost N,GE LETTERS: as powerful in his country as is Mrs Gandhi in our own. There was one FRESH EVIDE CE difference, ho:wever. The opposition parties in Bangladesh. whatever their DRA NANDI 10 numerical strength in Parliament. believed in a tit-for-tat policy; they tried / to hit back wherever fhey could at ~'he student and youth 'bahinis' of the ruling Awami League. The Indian tactic failed in. Bangladesh-for once, and ES AND GAMESTERS Mujib was forced to cast off the. fig-leaf and authorise himself to act in any KAPUR 12 manner he likes without going through the democratic process. Prime Minister Bhutto of Pakistan was shoe.ked when Prime Minister Mujib transformed 12 himSelf into President of Bangladesh. Mr Bhutto said he would not do in Pakistan what Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had done to democracy in Bangladesh. True he has not made himself President: maybe bceause he was President once and knows that power is of the essence and it does not matter by what AT MODERN INDIA PRESS. SUBODH MULLICK SQUAB, name he who wields it is called. The powers that he enjoys under the con" .13 AND PUBLISHED WEEKLY stitution framed under his stewardship and the extraordinary powet:s conferred NAL PUBLICATIONS (P) LTD. SEN FRoM: 61. MOTl' LAN&. on him' by the Emergency add up to a frightening monstrosity. He has got: CuCU'l'TA-13 the Emergency extended for· an indefinite period by a National Assembly T'II.vlIon: 243202 , tip as boycotted by the entire Opposition and A Hoax sabotage the public sector in Minist! \ armed himself with the power to arrest or the other. There is thllS attack~ Assembly members when the House is Mr Pai's statement than m. The Prime Minister is reported to (altho' In sessIOn. It actually amounts to a kia1l have told the MPs belonging to her 01 the The Sheikh of Bangladesh ;ha,s god abashed surrender to the forca party that the Union Industry Minister, a; Me the power to ban all political parties in talism, whose representative the Mr T. A. Pai's statement on having a his country save one which will natu- is. All the talk about socialism. ~'national sector" should n,pt be cons- rally be 'his own. He has not used the supposed to be manifested in the power power yet. Mr Bhutto has not done it trued as marking a shift in the Congress sector, has been just a hoal policy on this subject. She tried to , and ( either. But he has banned the National the people so far. And now give the impression that. all t'ha( Mr Pili NarayaJ Awami Party and arrested some 300 of has com~ to call it off. Mr Pai has done was to do a little bit of loud party .• its leaders, including Mr Wali Khan, who wilJtingly let the cat out of the thinking and so should not be taken CPI ml was. in effect, the leader of the Opposi- it will just not be possible to nd boy! tion in Pakistan. The reason for t~e seriously. ,It would have been wo~der- ful if others could haie treated the Ray, n swoop is said to be the assassination of Imagl Mr Hayat ~ohammad Khan Sherpao. matter with equal casoalness. In the Congress Home Minister of NWFP and a trusted first place. Mr Pai never said that what And C colleague of ihe Pa'kistan Prime Minister. he was saying was some sort of think- Mr Sherpao has been described as the ing aloud. Secondly, he sounded to be Before it made itself an main instrument of Mr Bhutto's gold-, extremely cogent and very well prepar- patror of the Congress. the logic and-guns policy in NWFP. The Pakistan ed as to how much to say. Thirdly, leaders that democratic forces . Prime Minister is cktermined to put even otherwise, there are indications without the Congress should down once and for all "the politics of that the rulingl party has also now come some sense to some people in 1 violence which has its tentacles abroad". to think more or less on Mr Pai's line. pite its initial scepticism. the Pakistan is not new to this politics; nor, What he said amounted to a virtual !evidently came round to the s for that matter, India and Bangladesh. reversal of the Government's policy on when it supported bank nation The politics of violence in the countries the public sector. He feels that 491 per and Mr. Giri as President. La of this subcontinent is often counter- cent of the share of public sector un- lopments in West Bengal and violence. Mr Bhutto was not moved dertakings should be opened! up for jolted the CPI(M) out of all when several opposition leaders, inClu- holding by big, business in the country .. it might have had about the ding Khan Abdus .9amad' I(fhan Acha- Ihis would put their affairs in order Fools of the CPI however. c()uld ,.- hai, were assassinated or When at- and help the nation to save on the held back and they rushed ill tempts on Mr Wali Khan's life were substantial wastage of resources account- others had feared to 'tread. made. Violence is stalking NWFP ed for the white elephant that goes by What is the present situatioa and Baluchistan since the dissolution of the name of public sector units. the Congress, against the bac " the elected Ministries in the two pro- For some time it has been apparent a snap election whic'h now does vinces in February 1973. [fhe d,3ath that New Delhi has been trying to do aftog,ether certain.? Just how of a valued colleague has no~ madie something about the ailing public sec- has the CPI achieved? What Mr Bhutto undo that wrong. On the tor. The late Mr Mohan Kumaraman- pened since 1969? The s other hand, he has seized upon the galam tried a number of gimmicks like gressiv'e!forces in the CongressLa tragedy to further constrict civil liberty inducting the top hats of private sector on their feet. Messrs Dhar and and decimate the Opposition. For all units into the administration and setting are no longer in the Union their differ,ences and mutual suspicions up leviathans like thd Steel Authority of Kumaramangalam and Mishra~ and rivalries, the governments of Pakis- India Limited (SAIL). Mr Pai in turn gressive, according to the CPI) tan, India and Bangladesh are' united in also tried a few other things like de- Ganesh has been transferred; a common approach to parties of the centralisation of 'administrative powers, Reddy is so ~ eak and ineff Opposition. Their differences are super- workers'· participation in management he cannot take a single decisioo. ficial, while this unity is basic; an&!the and so on. But none of these has own; Yadav has been pushed . hollering is designed to mislead others.' re~ly worked, in spite of all the claims sidelin~, int~ the Steel and Min made by Mr Pai that some of the heavy try; Khadilkar and Malaviya engineering and electrical units have longer the weights they used For Frontier contact turned the comer and are' doing won- Sharma is a joke. As for P. PABITRA KUMAR DEKA, derfuUy well. The fact is that there Munshi and others-well. spa has been an obvious crisis of confidence valuable these days. Assam Tribune, at the highest level. Also, it is. being On the other hand, who are made increasingly cleat that the Gov- who control the Congress now} Gauhati-~, ernment is in. league with th~ powefui btedly, Mr Jagjivan Ram. who Assam. vested interests who have been trying to la~ted Mishra; Mr Chandras 2 Mrs Gandhi's successor as 'Sub-Regional Groups in . ter; Mr Dharia, who pub- ed Mr Chavan's pro-CPI ougb Chavan is no sincere M. S. P. writes: Assam. there was scant representation of that section. The convention was also CPI) in a spee<:h at Maha- Of latE.' there has b~en a officially patronispd, not merely in that essrs Haksar and Subrama- proliferation of sectional organi- it was inaugur~ and addressed and alsocoming in from the cold.