Vol. 4: No. 10 JUNE 19, 1971
0" Other Page! AFTER THE EUPHORIA
COMMENTS 2 T ROUBLE is endemic in the Assam region-a somewhat different kind; of trouble than what is prevalent in West Benga KAJAL SEN 3 hill areas. At the root af the perpetual unrest in Assam lies the mutu distrust of the hills and the plains people. The fear of the hill pea Bihar that they may lase their distinctive persanality if they are not vigilant based an history. The reaction of the plains people has notaUayed DEFECTORS' PARADISE fear but added to it. With streams of plains people from East Be N. K. SINGH 4 pouring into the hill areas for the last two months, the local people afraid that they may be autnumbered soon. This fear he,s found expr ON THE PARIS COMMUNE-illI sion through stray attacks on evacuees and acts of intimidation; th PARESH CHATIOPADHYAY 5 want the evacuees to be penned up in relief camps, and it is report that in some areas they are hunting out evacuees putting up with the SPOTLIGHT ON PAKISTAN relatives, and friends. Resentment is naturally more acute in Meghala N. K. CHANDRA 8 2nd Shillong has witnessed a bandh called by tribal youths on this issue. During her recent visit to Assam and Meghalaya the Prime Minis HMV AND INDIAN MUSIC sought to explain this hostility of the hill people to the evacuees as H. CHAKRABARTY 13 unavoidable consequence af poverty. Official spokesmen in New De have, however, thought up the easiest way out; they have stautly deni the existence of any hostility. Neither the Prime Minister's explanati HEARTS AND FLOWERS nOr the official deni~,l will enable the Government to dadge the probl MRIGANKA SEKHAR RAY 15 In earning months, not only will the problem be more acute in Ass but it may rear its head, maybe in a samewhat different form, in oth Clippings Strtes alsa. The people of West Bengal need have no fear that they THE TORTURED I[) be outnumbered by the evacuees; yet they may not put up for long wi the mounting pressure of the influx an the State's economy. Tb LETTERS 16 Centre's promise ta bear all expenditure on evacuee relief relieves State Government alone; it does not take off the common man's ba the additional load cast an him by the inevitable rise in prices as '8, res Editor : Samar Sen of the sudden bulge in population. In West Bengal also, there hl8i PRINTED AT MODERN INDIA PRESS, been some "incidents", though, mercifully, not on the same scale as 7, RAJA SUBODH MUUICK SQUARE, Meghalaya. There is na doubt that the situation will boil over if press CALCUTTA-13 AND PUBLISHED WEEKLY FOR GERMINAL PUBLICATIONS (P) LTD. of the influx on the local economy persists. Any smugness over t BY SAMAR SEN FROM 61, MOTr LANE, limited nature af the "incidents" is premature. CALCU'ITA-13 TELEPHONE: 243202 Few people in this country share the Prime Minister's hope tio m ere Benga w1)idh will enable the eva- All Of a sudden, however, these sto- ouees to return to their homeland- ries almost vanished from the papers. 'within six months. It is difficult to A public outcry fOr hot pursuit of Prices, like snowball, go out of disentangle the fact of the situation the intruders would have been very control once they start going up: so ftom the maze of propaganda and embarrassing for the Government, for goes the bromide. A mild dOse of exaggerations over East Bengal, in- the Government knows what is ac- price rise is not harmful; in fact it is dulged obviously by both sides. It is tuaHy happening on and across the conducive to growth. But the trouble 'clear, however, that the military !ad- borders. Newspapers now are there- is that it often assumes runaway pro- ministration has been able to tighten fore concerned with international and portions and threatens to undermine its stranglehold and is not in a pre- local relief, of the endless stream of the growth effect. The state of dicament which makes an early set- refugees, of cholera deaths in camps affairs in our economy largely COn- tlement of the issue imperative. India and on the roadside, of suppUes pil- firms this warning by economic seers. is pinning its hope on international ing up at airports and other places Though there was a marginal pressure, on the annoyance of the while people are dying. In this tem- drop in year-to-year differential in. aid-givers over the wastage of laid on porary transition from warlike mili- the last year, the price rise, over the purposes for which it was not meant. tancy to humanitarianism, very little year as a whole, averages about 5.6 If international pressure is at all space is given to the Mukti Fouz per cent. Then ,again any readings brought to bea,r on Pakistan, it is un- these days, in prices must be taken in the long likely to be exerted at India's con- Though it is not being aired open- and here the situation is all the blea- venience. The aid-givers wiII take ly, the feeling is growing that a settle- ker as certain dark forces are visible their own time. In the mean time, ment of the East Bengal tragedy in the crucial sectors which, after a many of the evacuees wiII opt for would not come by force of arms in certain period, are bound to have settlement in India ; a few la,khs may the hands of the freedom fighters, their impact felt. go back, but the bulk of them wiII i.e., the Frontier Rifles and eJements be here. This is the reason why of the Bengal Regiment backed by, No doubt food production has' other States are refusing to accom- screened volunteers. It is clear that gone up substantially and has de- modate these "temporary" guests. there was very little politicisation of finitely made the Government's dis- The States bordering on East Bengal the va5t masses by the Awami Lea- tributive task a good deal lighter. But have no choice in the matter, but the gue or, for that matter, any other thanks to the entrenched interest~ people are restive over the prospect party. The intense Bengali nationa- within the economy, it could hardly of further impoverishment. lism of the people carried within it- relieve pressures On prices and its self seeds Of discord-for ex- wholesome effect has remained con- ample, the hostility towa,rds non- tfined to a few kulaks and influential No Clear Skies Bengalis. And now, in conditions of clans who used the situation to fatten near-famine and anarchY,,-some peo- their walJet. (Food prices have gone Newspaper headlines and stories ple other than the Army or their camp down a trifle, but its offsetting effect since March in this country have been followers, are also turning on more on the general price index has been interesting, if not profitable, reading. hapless people and forcing them to negligible). The real danger for the The papers, as was natural, were full leave in a bid for living space. Many future lies in the fall in the produc. Of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and factors are getting mixed up in East tion of cotton, coal and steel. All :tris famous civil disobedience Bengal. the ballyhooing about the 'green re- movement and, after the March It is no wonder, therefore, that volution' and the technical break- 25 military crackdown, of suc- politicians and newspapers would through that it is supposed to bring cesful battles and the imminent speculate more about interna,tional in, has failed to affect cotton produc- victory of the Mukti Fouz. When pressure on Islamabad than On arm- tion which still depends on such pro- the victory did not come off, details ed action by indigenous elements. vidential forces as rain for its growth. began to appear of the atrocities of Meanwhile, the guns ,at times boom And owing to the :ailure of timely lbe Pakistan army. When the Gov- so loud and clear on the borders that rain the crop prospect this yea'r is ernment of India did not recognise it is not possible not to wake up. said to be much lower, which has the Bangladesh Government, our at- Villagers vacate their homes. On top posed a serious threat to the textile otion was diverted to the wrangling of all the misfortune, there are floods industry. On the other hand steel er the diplomatic missions in Cal- impending. The ideological situation production has been the victim of 13 ;a.nd Dacca. Then came the is also confusing. A debate is go- poor planning and inept organisation. gees. For a while there were ing on about the implications of East These failures, whether heavenly or also reports of Pakistani intrusions Bengal. The Chinese stand has man-made, will definitely show up OntoIndian territory, of vicious border clouded the skies that were clear in on the price front through their im- clashes in which both combatants Ma,rch. pact on the cost and prices Of the JUNE 19, 1971 products which use them as raw makrials. A Pitiless Pattern Failure to keep prices within bounds can undo much of the feat of KAJAL SEN Indian exports and sap even the never failing zest of Mr L. N. Mishra, THE Bangladesh episode seems to struggle across the border. Sympathy the voluble chief of Foreign Trade. be following the usual pat- in the capital and other States, sym- Ominous signs are already there and tern. As in Biafra and elsewhere pathy expressed by fashionable wo- control has given vent to liberal the uprising has been put down, even men at their coffee meets and khadi- permits to import certain categories if temporarily. Thousands have been clad gentlemen in the South Bloc~. of ....steel and cotton. These, together killed in the process and millions And there the matter ends. Tlie Sta- with capital imports for the plan, made homeless. But unlike as in tes which have flatly refused to share may add up to a, sizable import bill. Biafra these had to lea,ve their home- the refugee burden must have echoed On the other hand, exports will land and seek shelter under a foreign their people's attitude when they did suffer partly because of their reduced sky. The border districts of West so. cost competitiveness in the inflationary Bengal are once aga,in in the grip The Prime Minister has come and situation and partly because of the of stupendous problems created by gone. Twice. The purpose of her consumption of export abIes by our the refugees, problems to which no visits is not clear. If it had been to highpriced home m3rket. solution is as yet in sight. know for herself the exact position.. Not that the Government is not Over five million have crossed she could have done so, sitting in aware Of the potential dangers. But over into Indian territory so far. Delhi, from the reports which the so far all its antidotes have come to Less than 50% ha.ve found camp ac- State Government must be sending naught. In fact, the price rise has commodation. The others are left to her and also from her own agencies. ·blurred the real situation; it has live, and die, on their own. Salt If she thought she would do som~ rendered control ineffective and has Lake, Bongaon, Basirhat, Kadmpur, thing on her return, she hasn't done fostered organisational inefficiency. Shikarpur, Kalyani-wherever one anything so far. Except of course- And certain groups and individuals goes one is greeted with the cries 'of sending emissaries abroad. who could muster resources have in- hungry children. And ailing millions. It is a strange situation. What dulged in sharp practices and en- The dead lie sca.ttered all over the sympathy and support do Messrs Swa•. hanced their earnings while the rest place like noOOdy's business. Only ran Singh and Siddhartha Ray hope are left out in the cold. Such built- the canine population of Nadia and to gain from distant Moscow and in forces have made the task Of con- 24-Parganaos is happy. It is not Oanberra when at home people are trol further difficult particularly in a everyday that dogs can feast on hu- turning a deaf ear? Why weren't divided society like ours where class man flesh. Some, who have been these worthies sent to Orissa or An- forces operate a,t cross-purposes and doing so for over a fortnight now, dhra Pradesh Or Tamil Nadu to force breed social tensions. Admission of h, ve a wild look in their, eyes. Hu- the Governments there to share the' these dangers abounds in official man blood, even if it be of timid Ben- burden? Did rea,lpolitik stand in th studies and speeches. Despite this galis, can transform dogs into hyenas way? And what is the meaning bit of self-criticism, however, there or wilder bea,sts. that now almost hackneyed phrase is no positive effort to set forth a The camp inmates are in no bet- that "conditions must be created ~ programme to get around the prob- t~r condition. Even if a meagre por- enable the Bangladesh evacuees to re- lem. But unless this is done even tiOn of what passes for food is ensur- turn to their 'homeland"? What are the attainment of the .targeted invest- ed, there is no shelter overhead precisely the conditions referred t ment growth of 15 per cent in na- though the cruel monsoon beats down and who will create them? Is it tional income will be unable to do incessantly. Press reports say that within the jurisdiction of the Uni much good. Or perhaps the truth the cholera epidomic has been check- Government to create such "suitable- lies elsewhere: the authorities are ed. Little solace for Ajizul Biswas conditions" in East Bengal ? incapable of doing it. of Faridpur whose entire family has died of the disease. And people still "Bhasani on Leash" NOTICE continue to die. Perhaps the dea,th The Centre is of course not sittin Articles cannot be returned rate has !been lower; only portly idle. It continues to play at the bureaucrats can derive comfort from litical game. For instance it is noW, unless accompanied by return that. widely known that Maulana Bhas postag-e. There is much sympathy all was for all practical purposes ke Business M.mager around. There always has been, interned in Oa.Jcutta in the custody ~ Frontier since the beginning of the freedom the Border Security Force. Accord· JUNE 19, 1971 ,. log to well-informed sources, a BSF has been in the cesspool of instability had to bow down without a fight. official even used to take him out for since the fourth gen~ral election in He had to submit the resignation of evening walks oil. rthe Maidan-like 1967. his Ministry only two hours before a dog on a leash. Press interviews Even the 162-day tenure-from the Assembly was due to meet to were a.rranged where the aged Mau- December 22, 1970 to June I, 1971- discuss a no-confidence motion against lana had little option but to say what was rather a long term for the Kar- it. he had been told to say., A dig at poori Ministry which was expected to The defections which caused the China through him served the Indian collapse during the budget session of Samyukta's downfall, had obviously Government's purpose. He is now the Assembly meeting in the wake of been engineered by the 'Progressives': believed to be in Agartala. Pre- the mid-term parliamentary polJ in Mr Karpoori Thakur and other SSP sumably the Government does not which the constituents of the ruling leaders made a scathing attack on the like him to be on the other side of SVD suffered a debacle. This numeri- Ruling Congress leaders, particularly the border at this stage of the move- cal setback had a psychological effect the Prime Minister. In a press state- ment. His influence among large as well. However, the Government ment Mr Thakur made a specific re- sections of the pea·santry was never managed to survive, thanks to the pre- ference to the activities of Mr Yaspal ked by the Awami League. And if mature and unbusinesslike toppling Kapur, the "Prime Minister's emis- the League has failed to deliver the bid. of their political opponents and sary", as being "responsible for en- goods in Bangladesh others, particu- the gimmicks of the 'Socialist' Chief gineering defections from the SVD." larly those with known leftist views, Minister who felt an urgent need for He alleged that Mr Kapur had offe- can have no business trying to do so. expanding his Cabinet just before the red various inducements and made opening of the session. promises to probable defectors. The Ministry has been facing a se- rious crisis since the special conven- Post-mortem tion of the Samyukta Socialist Party, . However, no tears will be shed' the leading partner in the ruling over Karpoori's defeat. It is the Defectors' Paradise SVD, held ~n April. in whose wake price the SSP has had to pay for the party's 52-member front in the making opportunism its creed ~nd N. K. SINGH Vidhan Sabha was faced with dis- power its main aim. The Ministry, sension and desertions. A series of like all the coalition ministries in the "An i honest politician is one who, defections of legislators, mostly from past, had made itself a larughing stock when he is bought, will stay bought" the Congress(O) and the SSP, and by indulging in mere gimmicks. Cor- -Simon Cameron. the resignation of as many as nine ruption in high places had become the Ministers were followed by the revival talk of the town and ca,steism was NFlORTUNA TEL Y there seems of the 'mini-front'-::t. lOose alliance of practised in its most naked form. U to be a dearth of 'honest politi- groups of the BKD, Jharkhand, Hul In postings and transfers of Govern- cians" in Bihar ; in their absence the Jharkhand, Shoshit Dal and some ment officials a lot of iarvouritism was ministerial kaleidoscope has changed independents which had been instru- indulged in, further breaking the once again. On June 2, 1971, the mental for the fall of many ministries backbone of the already battered Congress-led Progressive Vidhayak in the past. Some gentlemen chan- administn tion. Dal comprising the CPI, the PSP, the ged their loyalties thrice within a Forward Bloc and a faction of the week. Mr Jagdeo Prasard of the Almost every policy decision of the Jharkhand. the Hul Jharkhand, the Hindustani Shoshit Dal, who was a SVD Government bore the imprint Hindustani Shoshit Dal, the Shoshit staunch supporter of the 'Progres- of the thinking of its reactionary Dal and some Independents plus a sives', discovered one fine Sunday alliance-the Jana Sangh, the Swa- number of defectors replaced the morning that his erstwhile colleagues tantra, the Syndicate and the Janta 162-day-old Samyukta Vidhayak were heading towards dissolution of Party. Mr Thakur's ties with the Dal Ministry comprising the Con- the Vidhan Sabha. He decided to Syndicate were no secret. It is said gress (0), the SSP, the Jana Sangh, support the Samyukt1. But on that even transfers and postings of the Swartantra, the Janta party, the Monday he found out his earlier for- officers were decided in the drawing BKD, the Hul Jharkhand and the mulation to be baseless and the SVD room of the State Syndicate boss, ~oshit Da,J, to be "reactionary". Hence he re- Mr S. N. Sinha, who was considered The downfaH of the SSP-led SVD joined the Indicate bandwagon. the political 'guru' of Mr Thakur. Be- Ministry did not come all of a sudden. In the face of the imminent fall, sides camparigning in the last election It was a certainty ever since Decem- the Chief Minister, Mr Karpoori to the Lok Sabha for three of the ~ 22, 1970. When Mr Karpoori Thakur, who had declared only two Congress (0) leaders indicted by the bakur was sworn in as the Chief days earlier, "I ram not a coward to Aiyer Commission of Inquiry, Mr )Moister Of this ill-fated State' which resign without facing the Assembly", Thakur appointed an 'Aiyerite' JUNE 19, 1971 the chairman of the their legislature membership to the •permits, Cmoporation. highest bidder. As soon as some The new PVD Government, descri- But these things were no hurdle in legislators 'find that the ministry they bed as "Defectors Goverment" by Mr the way of the Karpoori Thakur arc supporting is on the way out, they Suraj Narayan Singh, floor leader of Ministry which somehow managed to quickly jump the fence and get on the the Indian Sotialist Party land the pull on, thanks to the unending ex- bandwagon of a probable winner. CPM's joint front in the Assembly, p3nsion of the Cabinet, which reached Although party leaders are never claims the. support of I77 members a record strength of 53 in six expan- tired of tall talk about the need to in the House, which has an effective sions during five months. put down defections, defectors arc strength of 312. The Congress(R). The PVD Government led by Mr always welcome and generally the largest constituent of the alliance, Bl.lola Paswan Shastri is the ninth . offered very tempting terms. cbims to have increased its skength to assume office since the last general Thus a- political situation is deve- to 112 following the inclusion Of election land the 'fifth since the mid- loping in Bihar in which some people about 30 defectors. 'term poll to the Vidhan Sabha in have come to occupy the position of Two different views are being 1969. A mathematical calculation re- ;permaninent' ministers. No matter pressed about the stability of the. veals that with the two spells of pre- which ministry is formed, they will new Govern!llent. According to some sidentiul rule extending up to 15 become ministers because of their ex- political 'pundits', Mr Bhola Paswan months, the average life of a ministry traordinary ability to defect and Shastri C'In look forward to a longer in the State comes to a bare four re-defect. spell as Chief Minister this time. (He;. months. Such 'permanent' ministers want is heading a Government in Bihar for the fullest facility and freedom to mis- the third time). The present coali- Permanent Ministers use their power and cre2te havoc in Lion is stronger than any he led It is the peculiar phenomenon of the administration. If .any Chief before bec:,use of the participation of •'permanent' ministers which is pri- Minister tries to exercise his supervi- the ruling Congress. However, marily responsible fOr the political in- sory powers, the stability of his minis- another section of 'pundits' different stability in Bihar. Because of the try is immediately threatened. And that the Ministry, which is no exce~ composition of the State Legislative when one set of ministers are left tion frOmits predecessors in the matter Assembly in which no party commands free to do what they like, na:turally of patronage of habitual defectorst- an overall majority, independents, the other ministers cannot be con- cannot last long. defectors and mini-parties find an ex- trolled. The net result has been a So far the people of Bihar are con- cellent opportunity to fish in troubled virtual competition in the misuse of cerned the change in the ministerial waters. Unprincipled elements and power, especially in the matter of kaleidoscope will hardly make MY power seekers have found an excellent transfers, postings and promotions difference because of the phenomenon opportunity more than once to sell of officers and grant of licences and of 'permanent ministers'. On The Paris Commune-III PARESH CHATTOPADIIYAY lVl ARXISTS, beginning with fol1y" by the workers began to take a fairly long time ... The proletariat Marx himself, have stressed the shape M2rx, instead of condemning requires, fOr the moment, education tremendous signi'fic2nce of the Com- hailed it, in a letter to Kugelmann much more than armed struggle'~. mune. We saw earlier how Marx in on 12.4.1871, "this historic initia- Marx wrote back to Kugelmann on his Second Adriress, six months be- tive", this "Heaven storming" event 17-4-1871 an indignant letter in repl fore the civil war started, had warned by the working class, adding that to the latter's mechanical and the French workers against resorting "history has no like example of such thorough-gning reformist estimate of to insurrection. Almost at the same greatness". Kugelmann, in his reply, the event. Marx wrote that history time Engels had written of the neces- behaving like 3 good 'Marxist' would be very easy to make if every sity of preventing a rising of the showed his disagreement be- struggle were taken up "under th French workes in the given circums- cause the workers had not condition of infallibly favourahl'O 10 tances. But when the civil war followd the "logical" order of chances". When the workers took was imposed on the workers by the things--llirst political education, then the "historic initiative," in spite of h' bourgeoisie and the act of "desperate organisation and at last action. "The warning against a premature upris' defe2t", he Wf0te to Marx, "will de- Marx, instead of bureaucraticalli lOLetter to Marx, 12-9-1870. prive the workers of their leader for admonishing them, stressed that there JUNE 19, 1971 are mom~ts in history when the ~ the police, the standing army and the rity over the minority, contrary to the masses must take up arms, even with bureaucracy-because the old state state power in any earlier society. At the prospect of certain defeat, rather machine waS' an instrument of oppres- the same time, however, it is a 'tran- than capitulate without a fight be- sion by the exploiting classes over sitional state power, in the sense of cause "in the latter case the demo- the exploited-the toiling masses. We state power preparing the way for the ralisation oi the working class would have already summarized above the elimination of all state power and, bave been a 'far greater misfortune steps the Commune adopted in this thereby, of aU oppressive machinery than the fall of any number of ,regard. This lesson of the Commune in future when there will be no class 'leaders' ." was considered by Marx and Engels to oppress another class. As was pointed out earlier, the as being of such importance that they The process of "withering away" leadership Of the movement in Paris regarded as no longer sufficient what of the state begins almost at the st«rt was not in the hands of the Marxists they had written in the famous se- of the proletarian dictatorship ; from but in the hands of those-Blanquists cond section of the Communist Mani- that moment on the proletariat nO and Proudhonists-whose ideology festo-a quarter of a century earlier longer requires any special organ of was different from and, to a certain . -concerning the working class revo- government like the standing army, extent, opposed to Marxism. But, lution. Accordingly, in their last joint the police Or the bureaucracy separate far from being sectarian on this issue, preface to the Manifesto (1872) they from and opposed to the people. Marx and his followers gave the :tJded, quoting Marx' from the Civil Otherwise the proletarian revolution movement their enthusiastic support. War, "one thing especially was prov- would merely result in the transfer of Thus the organ of the International, ed by the Commune, viz. that 'the the state machinery from the one hand published from New Yark, in its issue working class cannot simply lay hold to the other and would not qualita- of 18.7.1874 wrote, "The Internatio- of the ready made state machinery tively differ from the bourgeois revo- nal did not make the Commune and and wield it fOr its own purposes'." lution. On the contrary, the proleta- was not identical with it, but the The destruction af the bourgeois riat, once it captures power must arm, . members of the International made state-in the sense given above-and as the Commune showed, all the ex- the programme of the Commune their the creation of the proletarian state, ploited sections Of the people, start- own in order to extend it beyonc secondly, is impossible without the ing with itself, so that the masses Itself, and they were at the same time proletariat using violence against the themselves take the organs of state the most zealous and faithful defen- bourgeoisie in course of the revolu- power directly in their own hands.Is ders of the Commune, because they tion. This for two reasons. First, the Compared to any other earlier state had realised its importance for the bourgeoisie will not peacefully sur- the proletarian state would requir~ working class."ll Similarly the Ma- render its power which it exercises violence only to the extent of suppres- nifesto of the Paris section af the with ruthless violence over the work- sing a small minority (the former ex- International had earlier declared, ing class through its military, police ploiters)-which of course must be "wherever and in whatever form th~ and bureaucracy, aJld secondly, even ruthlessly suppressed. Within the class struggle i'S waged the members when defeated, for the time being, ranks of the immense majorhy, almost of our aSsociation must be in( its front by the proletariat it will make every by definition, violence will have be- I'anks."12 attempt to restore its lost power by come totally unnecessary and thus the In one of his letters to Kugelmann, violence. This dual role of the pro- proletarian regime will have started referred to earlier, Marx characterized letariat is the very essence of the on the road to the "withering away ~e Commune "as the new point of dictatorship of the pro!etaridl and the of the state". At last society as a departure of world-historic impor- Paris Commune first embodied this, whole begins to take back the power tance". The reason was that the as Engels pointed out in his historic that was so long usurped by the state, Commune was the ,first workers' State Introduction to Marx's work on the arising out of society, as its "para- m .history-however short-lived-es- Commune.. The necessity and the sitic excrescence". This is how tablished through the proletarian re- signi'ficance of the dictatorship of the Marx SaW it, as the following extracts volution. The workers' State, how- proletariat have been, as is well from his FirSt Draft of the Civil War ever, had to be created, as their lea- known, emphasized by all the great in France (untranslated into English) lfers understood, only through the teachers of Marxism from Marx to shows: "The Commune is the re- destrucMon of the old state machine Mao Tse-tung in their struggle against taking (Riicknahme) of the power -through the destruction, that is, of the right-wing opportunists of the in- of the state by society as its own po- ternational working class movement. wer in place of the power which op- llCited by Lenin in his Paris Com- The dictatorship of the proletariat presses society and to which it sub- mune and the Tasks of the Democratic is the state power of the working class mits itself [Slich unterordnet], this is ~ictatorship (1905). and, by the very definition of state, llCited by Lenin-ditto; emphasis it is a repressive machine, but this lSSee Lenin, Letters From Afar:- added. time on behalf of the immense majo- Third letter, 11-3-1917. JUNE 19, the retaking of the power of state by elections -and representative institu- • initiating tbe process of' "witherin the masses of the people themselves, tions but the real participation of the away" of the state by the dissolutidn wh~ in place of the organized vio- masses in the elections and the "con- of the stJanding ar~y, the police and lence of oppression, create their own version of the _represent~tive institu- the bureaucracy and having, in their violence ; this is the political form of tion from talking shops into wor/qing place, direct p~rticipation by the mas- their social emancipation in place of bodies. "17 ses in arms in the 'affairs of the state, the arti'ticial violence of society ... The path Of the Commune history has shown' advances as well the Commune does not put aside the has been the path of the world as retreats: class struggle through which the revolution. The whole experience of On the eve of the creation of the working class w.ants to arrive at the the Commune can be summed up in second proletadan state-the Soviet abolition of all classes and conse- the two centraJ tasks placed before Union-Lenin's programme • envisag- quently, all class domination but it the proletariat: (a) the destruction ed a state essentially similar' to the creates the rational intermediate of the bourgeois state apparatus Commune that is, where the work- .stage within which the class through armed revolution and, by. the ing class llad destroyed the old stat~ struggle can go through its various same process, creation and consoli- apparatus and in its place had armed phases in the most rational and hu- dation Of the proletarian state-the the masses of the people, including man way [auf rationelleste und hu- dictatorship of the proletariat and (b) itself, without cre3Jting a bureaucracy manste W(Nse durchlaujen kann].14 preparation of the "withering away" and a standing army of its own.IS By the same process the Commune of the state as a speCial repressive ma- But for various reasons, as Lenin also showed, for the first time in chinery. FOr the last one hundred himself later explained, the old state world history, how masses through years a lfierce baHle has been raging apparatus could not be fully smashed their own representatives take the in the international working class mo- and many of its elements the workers' affairs of the state in their own hands vement around these two tasks of the state simply took overY) Lenin, of • and manage them in the interest of proletariat-the Ma,rx.ist~ accepting course, sufficiently warned his com- themselves. By its own example it and implementing them and the re- rades against the damage involved in proved the sham character of bour- visionists, the anarchists and the op- such a situation and broadly suggest· geois parIiamentarism which decides portunists of all hues rejecting them. ed some steps towards eliminating "once in three Or six years which The most important lessons, con- it.2o He, however, lived for too member of the ruling classes was to cerning the first tJask, that all revolu- short a period to act on these steps. misrepresent the people. in parlia- tionaries have :drawn from the Com- After his death the "special repres- ment" .15 The parliament in a bour- mune are: (1) it is the masses who sive machine" of the state was more geois state is never the real centre of make the revolution; (2) the ex- and more "perfected" not simply to power. Real power is held behind ploited must obtain arms and never use against the enemies of the work- the scenes by the army, the police, surrender them, as they can seize p0- ing class but very often against its and the bureaucracy, while the par- wer only by arms; (3) the revolution allies as well till a time was reached liament continues to create the illusion must be led by a Marxist-Leninist when, after the complete triumph of of peoples' representativity (so that Party; (4) the workers must closely revisionism, the standing army _and the capture of parliamentary majority ally themselves with the peasants the bureaucracy have been alienated even by the working class party in a -mainly the poor peasants-and iso- from and opposed to the people at bourgeois regime does not at all la,te the bourgeoisie and its allies ; home and, under the pernicious slo- change the class nature of the re- (5) the revolutionaries must not gan of "limited sovereignty", (that is, gime). But the Commune elected show any mercy to the class en~- unlimited sovereignty for the Soviet by universal suffrage by the masses mies; (6) the revolutionaries mu~t Union) are being used to suppress was no longer a "talking shop" as a be prepared against intervention by peoples' rights abroad. bourgeois parliament is. It was to international class enemies. There is, however, no negative wi· be a "working, not a parliamentary These lessons have been brilliantly thout the positive. At a time when body, executive and legislative at the vindicated, after the Commune, by the socialist system ha~ been tho- same time. "16 Thus the Commune all revolutioIlS leaidng to the dicta- showed that the way out of parlia- torship of the proletariat-the fore- 18Cf. Lenin-Letters frqm Afar: mentarism is not the abolition of most being the October Revolution Fifth Letter, 26-3-1917. and the Chinese R~olution. lOin Five Years of the Russian Re. 14Erster Entwurf fum 'Biirgerkrieg As regards th. second task of the volution and the Prospects of the in Frankreich' in Marx-Engels- proletariat referred to above, that is, World Revolution (1922). , Werke (17), s. 543-45. 20e.g. in 'Purging the Party (1921); 15Marx, Civil War in France, Sec- 17Lenin, The State and R.evolution, Political Report of the Central Com- tion III (emphasis added). 1917. Chapter III, Section 3 (emphasis mittee of the Russian Communist Partl/ 16Ibid. 1tdded). (1922) . JUNE 19, 1971 roughly subverted in the land of the standing army are being undermined during the war, their confusion econd prol~t~rian state it is the c and, in their place, the masses are religion with nationality and the re- Chinese working class under the lea- directly taking in their own hands sulting support for Pakistan, their in- dership of Mao Tse-tung, in close the affairs of the state. This is of 'ability to play an independent role alliance with revolutionary forces course a protracted war against the that led to the call fOr Congress- the world over, that is upholding the old society and only the first step has Muslim League Unity-all these cul- red banner of the Commune. It is been taken in the "ten thousand li minated in "the grotesque decision indeed in China, more than anywhere march". . .. to send its Muslim members to else, that the bureaucracy and the (Concluded) enter the ranks of the Muslim League ... in order to strengthen the bour- Book Review geois factiOn in the League 'against the feuda,l landlords ... " (p. 32-5). When finally, the CP of Pakistan Spotlight On Pakistan (de facto confined to the west) was set up in 1948 by 'a, decision of the N. K. CHANDRA CPI, it had barely 200 cadres. Even this skeletal party was liquidated in PAKISTAN: MILITARY RULE OR PEOPLE'S POWER? the wake of an unsuccessful putsch in By Tariq Ali conjunotion with some "progressive" Jonathan Oape, London. Price: £2.75 Army leaders. To this day no com- munist party, either legal or under- HIS book by one of the most He also points out, and this is rela- ground, exists in West Pakistan. T well-known and self-advertising tively less known, how a sign~ficant As for the non-communist Left among the fairly recent crop of section, if not a majority, of religious they too never amounted to very student revolutionaries was assured Muslim leaders were against the much. A number of workers' strikes of a sizable sale from the Sitart. If creation of Pakistan. But what and student demonstrations took one can overlook his Trotskyite affi- about the Hindu leaders from the place inter!TIittently against the re- liations which surface only occasio- Mahasabha through . the Congress ? actionary policies of the government nally towards the very end one will Were they entirely blameless? Per- but there was never any concerted at- enjoy this fairly interesting, though haps Tariq Ali deliberately avoided tempt to challenge the rulers. In the not quite penetN,ting, critique of Pakis- these issues in order to sharpen his early 'fifties Mian Iftikharuddin broke tan's .socia-political developments from attack on the "feudal and c'apitalist away from the Muslim League to set its inception to the fall of President. class of Pakistan which has been up the Azad Pakistan Party which Ayub. As a participant in many miJ.i- ruling the country since 1947 in demanded basic land reforms and tant protest marches in London and varying guises". (p. 13) . other radical measures ; but his main an observer of the revolutionary scene The lauthor ,then goes on to unfold contribution was through the Pakistan in France of May 1968, Tariq Ali is the story of Pakistan as it went Times and other newspapers-the only at his best when he describes the vari- through the- various stages, emphasiz- organs that highlighted the plight of ous anti-government movements in ing at every opportunity the darker the poor and exposed the crimes and Pakistan, especially the widespread sides of the reality usually swept corruption of the government. To- disturbances of 1968-69 that take up under the carpet in "scholarly" writ- wards the mid-fifties his party along two long chapters. Wit and irony, ings both in Pakistan and in friendly with Bhasani and others from the a flair for the polemic and la healthy countries abroad. To Indian readers, east wing formed the National Awami -spirit of irreverence towards the vene- however, most of it is well known Party whose main virtue was its re- rable and the mighty-all these are thanks to our newspapers which, with 'fusal to succumb to the lure of office. Illdroitly used to banish boredom from rare exceptions, have never relented It lacked ideological cohesion. Its the pages. in their undeclared Jehad :against the strongest unit in West Pakistan was The book naturally begins with an Pakistani State from its very incep- in the Frontier Province where the explanation of how "the Muslim tion. Less well known to us are the pro-Moscow Wali Khan was leading· landlords (came to) have a country". trials and tribulations of opposition It and was mainly interested in break- The collaboration of the Muslim parties and gro., specially of the ing up the One Unit ; to this end he League with the British is duly Left. It is to these jul.t we may now made no compromises with Ayub. emphasized as is the greed of the turn. ~ Left-wing pro-Peking elements also Muslim "lumpen-bourgeoisie". i.e., The root of the problem goes back worked inside the NAP and exerted the traders from Bombay, Gujrat, to the attitude of the Indian Com- some influence over a small number etc., who could not successfully munists early in the 1940s: Their of trade unions. Unfortunately, tliey compete against their Hindu rivals. collaboration with the British Empire. equated Ayub's pro-China policy JUNE 19, 19.7.1.- , ' witij anti-imperialism and thus for- League and a few with the liberal the peasent question failed to spear- feited a good deal of potential sup- Ganatantri Dal, but the panty was by head the 'fight against Ayub and port among the rising numbers of no means wound up. In the early thus enabled the East Bengali petty peasants, workers, students and other ~fties it had a modicum of success. bourgeois natio'nalists led by Mujibar middle-class people who were disillu- Allying itself with the nationalist ele- Rahman to emerge as the dominant sioned with the Ayub regime. The ments who were agitating for a element in political life. sacking of Bhut!to on American pres- rightfuL place for the Bengali language sure brought into the scene 'a,brilliant in the Pakistani State, the CP :along Foreign Influences organiser who soon turned to be the with the Youth League gave' the first Despite great differences in their so- most effective leader of the opposi- call for an anti-Muslim League front cio-economic perspectives the, Left ,tiOIi; 'a spell in Ayub's prisons great- in September 1952. The United both in East ,as well as in West Pakis- ly enhanced his stature and helped Frontaatually materialized and vir- tan came up against two major hurd- people to forget his eight years of tually routed the ruling party in the les: the repressive policy of the service to the military junta. One of 1954 elections when the CP, includ- government and the friendship bet- the best 'things he did was to expose ing its known supporters inside other ween Aytm and the Chinese govern- the servility towards the Americans parties, won as many as 26 seats. ment. Mr Tariq Ali does not object of the Ayub government which "had However, Central interference, com- to the maintenance of good neigh- instructed the press not to write a bined with a growing scramble for bourly relations between a reaction- single word that might offend the ag- power among the politicians, disrupt- ary Pakistan and a revolutionary gressors in Vietnam .... Our press ed the United Front and a succession China. But he criticises Chinese lea- has been directed not to publish pho- of governments followed while Pakis- ders and delegates who went out of tographs of war released by interna- tan on the international plane was their way to extol the positive .tional agencies and published all over gradually veering towards arms pacts achievements of the Ayub regime. the world including the United States with Western imperiaHsts. Eventual- On this he marshals some facts most and Western Europe." Mr Kasu'ri of ly, as everyone knows, Martial Law of which, unfortunately, are taken not the Bertrand Russell Tribunal fame was promulgated, a large number of from the Chinese but from the offi- joined Bhutto who also managed to Leftists were thrown in to prison and cial Pakistan Press. The gist of the draw in a number of young socialists hardly any political activity was al- conversation in 1963 between Mao • with his promise to nationalise the lowed till 1963. and Chou En-Iai on the one hand and key sectors of industry although he In the mid-sixties the Leftists Bhasani on the other has already himself believed in the "socialism found themselves in a quandary. been quoted. Then in 1964 "after that existed in Britain and in Scandi- The ComnlUnists faced a multiple Ayub's fake election victory (over navia", in "the kind of mixed eco- split. There were the Khrushchevites Miss Jinnah, the Presidential candi- nomy" ensuring "conditions proper led by Professor Mozaffar Ahmed date of the Combined Opposition to free enterprise, namely those of who was firmly convinced "that the Parties) he had received a congratu- competition ... " (pp. 147-8). Any- objective conditions are ripe ... not fOr latory message from the Chinese way, "the most influential section of socialism, but for bourgeois democracy Prime Minister claiming that his suc- the party consisted of opportunists ... The political lConsciousness in cess showed quite clearly that Ayub who had deserted the Convention pa,kistan is not a socialist conscious- had the support of the people. Muslim League of President Ayub ness and therefore the revolution must Again, when Marshal Chen Yi visited and joined Bhutto in the hope that come in stages. Of course, we need Lahore after the war in 1965 (with he would SOon gain power". (pp. a revolutionary party, but that is the India) he stated that basic democra- 190-1). bter events have fully jus- next smge". Undoubtedly, "this cies had something in common with tified Mr Ali's highly sceptical assess- was", as Tariq Ali continues, "revi- people's communes". As a result in ment of Bhutto and his party. sionism gone mad". (P. 193). The Pakistan "the pro-Chinese groups ,,- - pro-Peking Communists and Bha- . Peasant Struggles waxed lyrical in their support for sani's followers in the NationaJ Awami Ayub. They had earier proclilimed In East Pakistan the underground Party had a very ambiguous stand the Indo- Pak war as a 'people's CP launched armed peasant strug- right up to 1969. Straight from the war' I They used Ayub's foreign po- gles in several districts late in 1948 prison Bhasani joined a government licy to argue against any opposition in response to the Ranadive .thesis. delegation to Peking in 1963 where to him ... " (~134). Some more As it failed some 3,000 political "he was advised by Mao and Chou- quotations are ~ven to show that prisoners were locked up tiII about En-lai" to proceed slowly and care- even after the Cultural Revolution 1954. In tune with the new soft fully" in the struggle against the Chinese support for Ayub was not line promulgated by the Cominform Ayub regime. (p. 140). Moreover, confined to diploma,tic ni~i~. in 1951 the Communists began to even among the pro-China groups On occasion Tariq Ali te'iir. . . e work through the Awami Muslim their programme of militant action on carried away by his own prejudices and reads too much into Chinese but also a foreign markt't for their ma- in the country's foreign trade, the statements. If Chen Yi in early 1966 nufactured and semi-manufactured wa- absorption of the lion's share of for- congratulated the Pakistani govern- res at a time when industries were eign 'aid' in the Western province- ment and people for having "triumph- running considerably below capacity. these and many other facts of the ed over the enemy and finally repuls- All this, however, would not weaken mode of exploitation should have ed the ia.ggressor... " there was no- Tariq Ali's basic contention regarding been ,at least indicated if not discus- thing unusual about it given the Chi- Pakistan's priJpary dependence on sed at length. nese (and many other countries') the USA ; for, didn't the USA bless Finally, the author true to his Mar- stand on Kashmir. Tariq Ali's com- the Soviet initiative 'at Tashkent? xist conviction tries to show that the ment that "Marshal Chen Yi did not West Pakistani proletariat gained elaborate on whether the poverty- East Pakistan little out of this loot. Their real stricken Indi~n peasant was the enemy Just as Pakistan as a whole re- wages hardly rose over the two deca- of his Pakistani counterpart, or mained a US neo-colony, the Eastern des and their monetary earnIngs were whether it was the Indian and Pakis- Province "gradually be'came a com- about the same as in the east. How- tani ruling classes who were united: in plete colony; its raw materials, which ever, that is not the entire story. opposition to the peasants and wor- brought in badly needed foreign ex- Prices of both industrial and 1agricul- kers in both countries" is a piece of change was used to develop Karachi tural goods me generally much higher logical non sequitur that often passes and the Punjab. The reverse of the er in the latter province with the off as a fine debating gesture. coin was that East Pakistan also be- result that the actual purchasing po- Ali is back to 'terra firma when he came a market for industrial com- wer of money is significantly higher points out how all this time the Ayub modities produced in the industrial in the west than in the east. More- regime was totally dependent on the centres of the Punjab" (pp. 60-61). over, the proletariat in West Pakistan U.S. imperialists and had also deve- That the Central Government secre- may have been better off in yet other, loped speciaUy close ties with Iran tariat is primarily, if not exclusively, ways; the types of industries that and Turkey, two of the most trusted staffed at the highest levels, by non- grew up in these parts had a larger lackeys of imperialism in West Asia. Bengali civil servants and that the component of skilled labour than in Evidence piled up includes the pre- Army is similarly led by men from the the other wing, creating more avenues sence of U.S. military advisers in Is- same wing is duly underlined. Equal- of self-improvement. More impor- lamabad, the daily pleading of Ayub ly mercilessly he exposes the "radal tantly, the much faster exparlSion of with the U.S. Ambassador to help myths ... effectively propagated throu- industry in the west increased corres- end the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965, ghout West. Pakistan: the Bengalis pondingly the employment potential his visit to Washington at the end of were short and ugly; they were not so that the pressure of the unemploy- the hostilities to explain his conduct fighting people ; they were cowards ; ed and the under-employed was consi- in order that U.S. 'aid would be re- and many other crude and fascist ge- derably reduced. To put it in other sumed, etc. However, there is no neralizations". With a wry humour words, the poor in West Pakist'an systematic presentation of the extent he continues, "The Bengalis with would have been worse off had accu- of U.S. penetration which would whom I discussed the matter were not mulation, taken place at a slower convince someone for whom Pakis- amused. They pointed out that their pace. Apart from the proletariat tani membership Of CENTO and physical characteristics differed from many other sections of the middle SEATO is not quite conclusive ; after the Vietnamese only in that the ave- classes must have been beneficiaries, all, had not Pakistan declared from rage Vietnamest: was shorter than the too, either directly or indirectly. the beginning that her sole enemy was average Bengali" ( .. 32). Could it be one of the factors that India and that she did not feel threa- Yet there are only stray references explains the almost complete silence in tened either by China Or by the to the mechanics Of colonial exploita- the west wing when East Bengali na- USSR ~ tion. The siphoning off Cif the east's tionalists were crying themselves Over-attention to China and the jute export earnings to the west wing hoarse against the drain right from USA has led Tariq Ali to neglect the industries and the transference of EasT the mid-!fiftes? recently developing Pak-Soviet friend- Pakistan's industrial prdfits to the ship which received a shot in the arm West by the non-Bengali owners are A Class Analysis after the Tashkent meeting. Military the only ones mentioned, but the!total On the class character of Pakistani supplies started coming in, Soviet aid is much larger. The stagnant, if not society Tariq Ali gives an unambi- became more plentiful while the vo- falling prices of eastern exports vis- guous verdict: it is a, country ruled lume of trade went up several times a-vis 'artificially higher prices of ma- by the landlords of West Pakistan in cbmpar.ed to the early sixties. It was nufactures imported from the West, collabor,ation with the Army, Civil particularly vital for the West Pakis- the small share of development ex- Service and the big urban bourgeoi- tani capitalists since they got not only penditure in the east, preponderance sie of a comprador nature. Of the an alternative source of capital goods of West Pakistani commercial groups total privately cultivated 1area of JUNE 19, 1971 around 46 million acres in West Pa- tie." The hari is always in "fear ot' ment Advisory Serv~ce based kIstan some 6,000 big landlords or imprisonment, fear of losing his land, Harvard University. (P. 224-5). 0.12 per cent of all landowners pos- wife or life ... His cattle might also be Another urban c1ass distinguished b~ sess about 5 million acres, i.e., an snatched laway and he might be bea- the authOr is the upper petit bour- average of over 800 acres per land- ten out of the village. The zaminder geoisie comprising businessmen ruined lord. The next group of 57000 land- might at any time send for the hari by inflation or loss of foreign tra lords own 10 million acres, or an ave- for purposes of forced labour'- ..He licences, large shopkeepers, contrac-;; rage of just under 200 acres each. dare not refuse." At the time of tors, l,awyers, technocrats and even Put together the top one-a-quarter election the zaminda'r calls "the had some schoot teachers in the higher per cent of the landowners have one- and tells him to vote for the candidate wage brackets. The lower petit third of the total land. The West P,a- of the zaminder''s choice ... If the ri- bourgeoisie, "the left wing 'majority kistan Land Reforms Act of 1962 val candidate wins there are 'fresh of the petit bourgeois class", consists was a sham, hurting nobody as it al- miseries in store". (pp. 98-9). of "sections of students, office peons, lowed holdings of up to 500 :acres The bottom of the pyr,amid consists shop-assistants and small handicrafts- of irrigated or 1,000 acres of non- of seven lakh families of rural prole- men". (P, 226). irrigated land per individual; the tarians, the landless labourers whose The urban proletariat is concentra- amount of land actually redistributed existence is little better than that of ted in manuf,3cturing, mining, com- as a consequence accounted to no la'slave. Even after 112 hours a ni'unications and transport ; they are more than 7 lakh acres. week of work he is hardly able to mostly in and around Karachi, Lahore. The rich peasants/kulaks are de- feed his family. and: Lyallpur. Despite the ha fined as those owning between 25 The urban population in West Pa- labour laws ,and the legally institu and 100 acres. Numbering 286,470 kistan expanded at 'a' very fast pace tionalized wage freeze, the lack of or about 6 per cent of all landowners from 6 to 9 million during the 1950s organization on a provincial leve they own 10.6 million acres or 22 and accounted for a quarter of the they used their own imagination per cent of the total land. The next total provincial popuJ.a'tion in 1961. initiative to win a number of impo group owning between 5 and 25 acres The rate of industrial development ,tant victories. Their living conditi ~re called the middle peasants cons- has been very rapid' but economic have barely mana.ged to keep pa tituting 29% of the total owners an JUNE 19, 1971 .. ~ This last deduction is by no means generally regarded as the potential or ul1der 100 acres. Once 3gai-r obvious. Even more confusing is liberator of Kashmir, it acquired a underlying relations of production are the author's statement later on the special place in the political set-up lost sight of. A landlord is one who me page that "landl~ss labourers of the country. Through the years lives parasitically from rents recei- are 26 p.c. of the cultivators ... " the two services-civil and military- ved without taking :any part whatso- (p. 234). Are landless labourers and were able to present a highly cohesive ver in the process of cultivation; per. very small peasants lumped together? and well-disciplined front. Their cOntra the kulak is actively engaged In any case, the author's sweeping paramountcy was 'finally established in supplying farm implements, seeds, prognosis that the proportion of the when first Iskander Mirza and then manures, etc. as well as in supervi- former will have gone up by another Ayub became dictators. The bureau- sing over the field workers. Thus a 10 p.c. ih the 1960s seems incredible cratic and the military hierarchy widow living entirely off rents recei': \inless agricultural capitalism in East jointly furthered the interests of the ved from a IQ-acre plot would be a Pakistan has made tremendous head- robber barons and the feudal lords. landlord, albeit puny, whereas some 'Way ; 'all available evidence points to In the process many erstwihle civil of Tariq Ali's 'landlords' may in fact the coutra-ry. For the urban classes servants and army officers themselves be capitalist farmers using tractors, the author merely notes the absence became capitalists and landlords. deep tubewells and scores of farm of Bengali Muslim entrepreneurs. Mr Ali's conclusions could be fur- labourers. The reason for harping The existence of a petit bourgeoisie ther strengthened had he provided on these seemingly semantic issues is is just acknowledged and the Awami more information on the social back- not entirely frivolous. It is possible ague is said to represent its upper ground of the Civil Service and Army that West Pakistan has been going sections. The proletadat has increa- leaders. Further, he should have through a certain transformation not d much more slowly than in the given more attention to the very cru- dissimilar to that of Prussia in the est while the wage rate stood at cial system of Basic Democracy desig- nineteenth century. The American- bout the same level, to be precise, ned to weld together the rural and sponsored Green Revolution achieved I7 per head per month fOr a urban upper classes with the Adminis- though tubewells and pumps, miracle rking class family. tration at all levels. seeds and fertilisers may have encou- At first sight the author's lattempt raged many erstwhile landlords to y and Civic Service to portray the'various classes appears imitate their Junker predecessors from In the context of Pakistan the top to be along classical Marxist lines. Prussia ; this class along with a highly helons of the Army and the Civil However, analytically, there are many .dynamic urban entrepreneurial class rvice constitute more important serious flaws. Firstly, feudalism is. backed by a· strong Army thoroughly mponents of the ruling classes than equated with the existence of lega- ~itmpr~gnRited..\v~llh m~rtial It~ad~tions, many other countries. In each lized landlordism. The more im- is capable of reproducing a social e there are strong links between portant is the question of feudal re- situation not unlike that Of pre-World se strata on the one hand and the ~altionsof production ; share-cropping, War I Germany. It would be en- ban bourgeoisie and the rural distress s'ales by peasants, big gaps tirely wrong, however, to push the ndlords of West Pakistan on the between the price reCeived by peasants. parallel to its logical conclusion as er hand. The chronic instability and the free market price, large-scale Indian chauvinists would like to. For, Pakistan's parliamentary politics indebtedness on the part of peasants given Pakistan's relative position ter the death of Jinnah and Liaquat resulting in usury and various other either in Asia or in the world at i Khan threw power increasingly eXitortions, the system IOf lattached large, she can never become :anything to the hands of the Civil Service labour against "free" or casual labour more than a junior partner of ich managed to win over indus- in agriculture, wage-levels below the imperialism. 'alists through the grant of industrial subsistence minimum leading to per- It is also worth noting at this stage d foreign trade licences; favourite petual indebtedness on the part of that Tariq Ali has underplayed the dlords were rewarded through the casual labourers-these are cha- achievements of Pakistan's rulers in pointments as lambardars or local racteristic of the agrarian scene as the field of industrial and agricultural enue collectors with enOrmous much of India as of West 3nd East ,development after the mid-fifties. wers over the peasants. At the Pakistan. It cannot be gainsaid that West Pakistan's progress was more e time since "patriotism in Pakis- these :are essentially feudal or pre- spectacular than that of India and n has taken an essentially negative capitalist in nature. The author, how- many other countries in Asia.!t is to which uses the Indi,an conflict ever chooses to apply mechanically their credit that a sizable part of the a foil", and since the Army (many criteria borrowed from West Euro- foreign largesse was turned into pro- its officers came from India leaving pean history. The second major de- ductive capital and not frittered away ind big properties and large num- fect lies in distinguishing between merely in ostentatious consumption s of relatives killed or maimed landlords and kulaks solely according for the privileged few. Indeed, the . g the communal flare-up) was to the quantum of land, owned : over very success of the regime in the.se JUNE 19, 1971 spheres may partly explain the lack failed to prove his point in a conclu- of an effective left-wing opposition sive manner. HMV And Indian Musl in the province. Sixthly, within the Pakistani ruling Coming back to our main problem, classes the contradictions between the H. CHAKRABORTY the author's classi'fication of the pea- feudal elements and the big bourgeoi- santry into poor, middle or rich is sie have been totally side-tracked. In IKE the cinema, the music re- rather mechanical, based on the the 1950s the price of manufactured L cord business in this country magic of numbers: under 5, between goods rOse sharply vis-a-vis agricul- also had a very early beginning. 5 and 25, and between 25 and 100 tural ones leading to a considerable Early cylindrical records were made acres. Why not, say, under 10, drain of resources from agriculture by various foreign and indigenous between 10 and 40, and between 40 into industry. Were the feudal in- compamies of which one was Ger- ahd 200 acres ? The author has not terests who supplied a large part of man. Mr H. K. Bose of Kunta/in So much as given a thought to the the cash crops and food for the urban fame persuaded Tagore when he was . intricacies Of the problem. Further, industries and population unaware of in his fifties to record a few songs for in a situation where sharecropping is it? If not, why did they not protest privlMe circulation. In this venture widespread the data on landowner- since they hold the lever of power? about 12 songs were sung by Tagore ship alone are not adequate. Thus Again the 1960's saw somewhat Of a recorded cylindrically of which all assuming a fifty-fifty division a share. reversal of this process i why was but one containing the Bandemataram tenant cultivating 20 acres but with no there not an opposite reaction from ,a,re untraceable now. The Bose land of his own would be like a mid- the manufacturing community? House was subjected to police search dle peasant ; On the other hand, the Similarly commonsense teaches us and Lalbazar people are said to have owner of 8 acres who does not culti- that there should be contradictions Mken away the waxen moulds which vate himself would obtain the gross between the big bourgeoi~ie and the presumably perished in the godowns income of a poor peasant. middle or petit bourgeoisie. The of Lalbazar. author also admits it without probing Fourthly, there is no mention of any further into either the mechanics Tagore was not satisfied with this mechanical device of music ca,tering. the rural craftsman. Are they SOin- or the manifestation of such conflicts. Even long after the .appearance of signi'ficant tod'ay? According to the Indeed, fOr the latter two groups the the flat disc he did not heed the re- 1951 census, 5 to 7 million people, discussion is much too vague without quests of various companies to re- excluding their families, are employed even an indication Of their numerical partly or wholly in small-scale and significance. cord his own voice. At last in about 1931 he recorded a few songs in the cottage industries; this figure inclu- In summing up one feels that the ded 1.7 million agriculturists for 10" discs of the .Hindusthan and author, although he may eventually HMV. whom it was a subsidiary source of prove tQ be right insofar as the rough income. (Pakistan Yearbook 1969). orders of magnitude of different classes But the first Tagore song recorded Surely such an important part of the are .concerned, has resorted more by HMV was not by anyone from Santiniketan or the .Tagore house. ,popuIJ3Itibncannot be j'us-t ignored. to his intuitive judgments 'and journalistic impression than to a cold The company noticed the commer- Business Ties cial potential of .this sophisticated analysis of underlying facts in order product and began to have these songs Coming to the urban bourgeoisie to produce a series of classes that sung by various popular artistes of and its links with international capi- accord well with Maoist prescription. those times such as Manadasundari talism the author fails to disclose any To add to the confusion the chapter Dasi, Krishnabhamini, Radhikapro- signi'ficant business ties between the beings with brief reminders of revolu- sad Goswami, K. Mullick, K. C. Dey two whether in the form of capital tions in different countries from participation or o~ /technical know- Russia through Vietnam to France etc. Needless to say, no necessity was felt by the ,artistes Or the com- how imports or use of brand names. (May 1968), whiCh is perhaps the pany to strictly adhere to the tunes and other marketing arrangements, main justitfication for the chapter etc. In the absence of such specific heading, "Pakistan and the Perma- set by the composer. Glaring exam-. pIes of distortion in tune and style of relationships of dependence the indi- nent Revolution". And it ends 'again singing are the records of Manadasun- genous business groups can throw off in a typically Trotskyite note with a da,ri Dasi (majhe majhe taba dekha the foreign yoke once they 'are able bill of demands leading to the estab- pai, Kafi, ektal) and Radhikaprosad to stand firmly on their own feet. It lishment of People's Power. Even Goswami (Swapana yadi bhangi/e, is not suggested that Pakistani mono- if some people understand the exact Ramkeli, ~ktaJ). Particularly in the poly capital has no direct business meaning of it, no living political latter record the .romantic lyric of links with foreigners, but the author forces in Pakistan ever echoed this or, Tagore wa'S turned by Goswami into by merely highlighting Pakistan's indeed, are likely to do so in the near overall dependence on foreign aid has future. a full-fledged .classical ICheyal for which he was not to blame personal- JUNE 19, 1971 ly. the p~actice of those times "manufacture the necessary raw mate- Hcy with regard to records of Tagore required sophisticated music of rials locally ood thereby be indepen- songs. any sort to be dres-sed up in classical dent of foreign supply. It takes a The earliest records of Tagore garb in spite of the difference in long time for a new industry to effi- songs are not traceable now. Testi- mood and ton~. Purely romantic ciently acquire the technical know- mony shows that the song kena ja- lyrics of the English type were just a how of sophisticated industrial pro- mini na jeta jagale na by Dwijendra- newcomer to this country. so much so ductionand be equal to other com- nath Bagchi (PI 05) is the earliest ex- that even the sahib-log of HMV petitors from the developed countries. tant record of a Tagore song.. Then could not recognise them at first The national aspect of the matter come A"!.i nishi nishi kata by Purna- sight. apart, HMV did much interesting kumari (N482) and Tomari rajani Music recording in this coun- work in the initial years of its busi- jibanakunje by Balaidas Sheal (P- try, as we have said, had a ness. It even recorded the sitar of 802). They were followed by Miss rather early start and various Muhammad Ali Khan, the last living Amala Das, Krishnabhamini and foreign and indigenous companies descendant of Mia Tan Sen on the Brajen Ganguli. entered into competition towards the son's side. The stalwarts of the last Bagchi and Amala Da,s (sister of close of the last century. But the century had with very few exceptions Deshabandhu Das) were close asso- affair had a qualitative change when recorded their music on discs of the ciates of T,agore which leads me to British lfinance capital joined the fray British Talking Machine company the presumption that these two of exploiting the musical potentials which turned later into the Gramo- singers in particular were trained by of India through the British Talking phone Company which again assum- him. Many actresses also were Machine company. TechI'ical supe- ed the world-renowned emblem of trained by Tagore and some of riority and political patronage (need- His Master's Voice. May their line them recorded his songs taking some less to su:y, also economic protection) multiply by the good grace of .their liberty here and there which wa,s the helped the company immensely. In Lord! By 1930 the company wa.s musical practice of those times. But this way the company was able in no able to acquire the music sung Or Manadasundari Dasi was definitely time to either drive the competitors played by such eminent maestros of not trained by Tagore. Majhe out of the market or bring them un- the last century ,as Md. Ali Khan, majhe taba del&1apai (p 3489) is der its heels. By the first decade of Alladia Khan, ]mdad Khan, Abdul bewildering listening. It is not a this century the company was the Karim Khan, Fayaz Khan, Aghore Tagore song in the strict sense of the master of all it surveyed. Chakraborty, Viswanath Rao, Lal- term; it is rather a Bengali kheyal An exclusive licence gave the com- chand Boral, Gahar Jan Jaddan Bai, using the Tagore composition as pany the monopoly right and privi- Laxmi Bai. MaIka Jan Agrewali etc. sthayi and antara. The same can be lege of importing the printing machi- etc. But where are those records said of the record of Radhikaprosad nery and necessary materials from now? Cancelled by the company land GosWiami from whom Tagore collec- England. During the la,st hundred not available in the market because ted many Hindusthani compositions. years no arrangement was made to the company squeezed whatever profit Bimala anande jago re (P2173) sung manufacture these things locally a,l- there wa.g in them and threw away by him is a full-fledged kheyal using though the necessary raw material the moulds into the godown. What the Tagore composition as classical (viz. lac) has lalways been available happened to them afterwards nobody kheyal. here in abundance. Since the intro- knows.' It is rumoured that all the It was recorded most pro- duction of plastic in producing gra- moulds a! the records of the old bably between 1910 and 1920; mophone discs, the business has been masters perished in the gutters of the there might have been one tagged to the capitaolist economy of company. It is not unusual tha,t a by Viswanath Rao. Tagore's Great Britain. Musical records can- foreign commercial interest is least reactions to these records lare worth not be supplied for lack of ti!Dely interested in the musical heritage of recalling. In some of his essays and impart of raw plastic ,aolthoughthe India, but it is regrettable that our letters collected in Sangitchinta demand for records has multiplied. intellectua,l leaders have remained (Thoughts on Music) he·is extremely It is nothing but the same old story of callous to the fate of our precious bitter in respect of the then virtuosos. perpetuating the industrial backward- musical documents ever since. He said that the term ustad (virtuoso) ness of this country land the constant Why is the compny so neglectful is indicative of mediocrity and he com- dependence of its econo!Dy on foreign of its old records? The secret is pared thelp. with wrestlers. He con- imperialist powers. that new recording yields its highest sidered' his songs self-sufficient, never Very recently a Bombay company return in course of five years. After requiring any embellishment of any has been able to snatch a licence from that there is not much business in it. sort (dialogue with Mr Dilipkumar the unwilling hands of the Govern- Then it is better to circulate a new Roy). ment of India,. Yet it will be a long record of the same song. Tagore's modesty and civility were time before this cOlJlpany is able to This explains the company's pa- boundless. But he was so' angry JUNE 19, 1971 with the ustad community that in force of drama to intercede. Hiru's' Clipping JnIy 1917 he wrote a long polemic proposal for, marrying Kumudini is which he delivered, before a full house stalled by her uncle and Him leaves of ticket holders in accompaniment of the village with a broken heart. The The Tortured his own illustrations in Hie Rammo- story could have well ended here, but han Library. After this vehement the demands of commerce would The following is the teitimony protest and condemnation, addi- decree otherwise. Hiru seeks out a an Argentine woman now in jail. tion of classical improvisations and job, marries an unwilling woman and ... When the pohce commis'Si embellishments to Tagore songs de- works like a dog to get at the top of arrests you for the first time, you sti creased, but not entirely. The re- the social ladder. His whole life be- don't understand precisely, in all cord of Manadasumdari Dasi came comes one of tragic maladjustment magnitude, what type of monst out between 1917 and 1926. She and Kumudini remains the dim you are going to face. You are n was rcm exquisite singer but she did memory of a sweet dream. This fully aware what road you have not (as none of her sort could at loosely-constructed film is laced with gUll to travel. .. There are quiet que that time) realise that unlike semi- sloppy sentiment; the Kumudini-Hiru tions, then beatings; they are t classical Bengali songs a lyrical song relationship, the keynote of the film, first, don't worry, they go on mount was, as in the West, complete in the is a namby-pamby thing and this jll~' I'n quality, insult, and the perso hands of its creator, particularly when flimsy affair, which would at ,best (()!1fronti ng you will Ihegin to I the composer was himself the tuner. have been the subject of a lfifteen- his biped state and become somethl It was an error of artistic judgment minute-long :film has been stretched of a machine. capable of destroyi which persisted till the forties. Later beyond limits of endurance and the men. we will discuss it at length. latter part in which Hiru undergoes a Sometimes he's successful. A hum grilling in his frantic attempts to 'fit form with strength and brutality th (The previous instalment appeared in himself into the haut monde life, is takes pleasure in killing and tortu the issue of June 5). hopelessly laboured. Sandhya Roy as ino-, will face you mon"ent to m Kumudini has appa,rendy misunder- ment. He won't let you think ar ea~ stood Lucy Gray as a scatter-brained with words and blows he will try chatterbox and it is, sad to find make you a traitor. First betray yo Hearts And Flowers Anup Kumar's talents as a comedian self! and then turn in your Ck) wasted in his miscast role of a roman- rades. He's j'ust like all the othe tic lover-boy. The only reward for you wouldn't notice him in a craw MRIGANKA SEKHAR RAY getting through this grinding film is or in the streets; he will attack the superb performance of Ram he will attack your body, destray y TARUN Majumder's occasional Chowdhury as a clan-conscious village genital organs, choke you with a-- jaunts into period material never priest with all his pride and prejudices. and you will end up with the stren really dig the times. He has no Ajay Kar in Malyadan emphasises of thou Frontier June 19, 1971 Registered with the Registrar of Newspapers of India under RN.16516/68 earn increasedrates of interest:' on small savings Higher interest rates~announced (jy tlie Central Government are now in force.' Old Rate New Rate (p. a.) (p. a.) 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