Tributes to Michael Harrington
Epstein, Cynthia Fuchs
I first came to really know Mike Harrington in 1976 on a lecture tour in India arranged by the USIA for International Women's Year. My tour included a small conference on "Social Diversity,...
...The Indians were surprised to hear Mike talk about issues of feminism in India and the United States...
...And, his thoughtfulness was impressive...
...and he listened to them...
...The Indian scholars seemed to move effortlessly between a dispassionate social scientific approach to the problems we were addressing (such as whether the road to modernization should follow the Chinese model, and what the consequences would be for democracy of the "emergency" declared by Indira Gandhi just before we came) and thought that they characterized as a "higher consciousness...
...When he learned that Indians in Oressa were not permitted to buy whiskey, he went out of his way to provide some for them...
...The talk was intense...
...My tour included a small conference on "Social Diversity, Economic Inequality and Political Integration" at a remote place called Gupalpur-on-sea on the south coast...
...It was attended by a handful of Indians and American Fulbright scholars, mostly political scientists with a radical past who seemed to have been deeply affected by their year in India...
...When my connection out of Bubaneswar was canceled he volunteered to wait several hours with me, rescheduling his own travel plans to be sure that I was not stranded...
...WINTER • 1990 • 107...
...in the Calcutta airport, I saw a man who towered over the other passengers...
...Many of the Americans found the leap to spirituality engaging...
...The time in India was only a moment, but a moment made special by Mike's insights, humor and compassion...
...unbelievably it was Michael Harrington, who was also scheduled to attend...
...Mike and I banded with the very tew whom we regarded as consistently reasoned, objective as to the facts, and oriented toward this world...
...The few Indian women at the conference were particularly impressed with the sympathetic concern and interest of this American man...
...Unlike most of their colleagues, he didn't pay lip service to egalitarian principles but talked about real solutions...
...This world" attention meant not only the problems of people of lower castes but, to the surprise of some, the plight of Indian women as well...
...Mike was also fun to be with...
...Waiting before 6:00 A.M...
...We had learned of the developing concerns regarding dowry murders of young brides and the disparity in literacy between men and women...
...I have many other memories of Mike in India...
...Many of his experiences are recorded in The Vast Majority...
...Forced to use a rickshaw, he was solicitous of the driver, getting off at every incline, and paying him the equivalent of a day's salary...
...Pursued by the betal nut "wallah" on our organized trips around the vicinity of the hotel, he had everyone thinking of new constructions: he came up with the "functional theory wallahs," "the utilitarian economist wallahs," and the "love wallahs...
...The conference was small, situated in a remote hotel...
Vol. 37 • January 1990 • No. 1
