Nations in Glass Houses

...The book, of course, lists the controversial issues, and everything currently relevant to them has been given a mention...

...and he can apparently be emulated, because some of his propagandists are so lacking in historical and geographical sense that they ascribe his unprecedented achievements solely to technological superiority...

...Reviewed by Sudhin Datta Poet, journalist, critic-, director, Indian Institute of Public Opinion Well-meaning books are seldom more effective than persons of good intention, and this review of Indian-American difficulties suffers from the additional disadvantage of being a corporate effort at removing or reducing current misunderstandings between the two countries...

...To understand this is to promote the comity of nations...

...Those carrying that load trod heavily on the impressionable soil* of Asia...

...and, even though both nations may have certain experiences in common, what counts today is that, in spite of such similarities, they disagree on most fundamental problems because of an overriding historical necessity...

...and, as she, too, is human, she likes to hide her compelling needs in ethical verbiage...

...and the method employed so far has been democratic in the Western sense...

...Thus, the bourgeoisie provides a good many adherents for the extreme left...

...Walter H. Mallory, executive director of the Council on Foreign Relations...

...For, while India will continue to be denied a better hearing at international meetings unless she discourages her representatives from shattering their frail health through hectic filibustering, quite a few Americans need reminding that, as the sole heirs of the Western world, they cannot altogether escape the unpleasant consequences of their heritage...

...The result is a mass of information already familiar to the champions of Indian-American amity, but not sufficient for those of opposite persuasion to change their minds...

...A. Appadorai, then secretary-general of the Indian Council of World Affairs, and Mr...

...and the masses, living on the level of bare subsistence, rightly think that, whatever happens, their condition cannot grow worse This is not to say that things cannot improve...

...Nevertheless, the contemporary approach narrows the perspective so as to render the origin of the trouble almost invisible...

...They are not spokesmen for the study groups or the two Councils, yet since their book grows out of the cooperative study they have tried to take account of the views expressed in the course of it...

...much of what has been suggested in this review can be gathered from the book itself if it is read between the lines...

...No wonder the sputniks caused widespread jubilation...

...and, who knows, through the sympathetic magic of planning, Asia too might reach the moon...

...These exchanges continued until the middle of 1956, when material acceptable to both sides was handed over to two authors, each safeguarding the interests of his nation...

...and, if they are no longer there, the resentment they once evoked can now be visited only on their innocent heir...

...Meanwhile, there is nothing in the Indian tradition to interfere with a controlled economy: The best governments in the East have always been paternal...

...Since in the present instance their intention, whether avowed or not, is to prevent the world from becoming one under Communist pressure, they would have done better by stating quite categorically that India should receive the maximum encouragement to remain neutral...

...After they had squandered away their spiritual prestige, there could not but be bitter envy for the lasting advantages they had managed to secure for themselves...

...For, unfortunately, each of us lives in a glass house...

...They have, to an extent few believed possible on the eve of India's independence...

...and so, to those whose faith in the omnipotence of science is not naive, the differences between East and West are as incapable of easy solution as the conflict of haves and have-nots...

...and it matters little that the United States was never one of several bearers of the White Man's Burden...

...Moreover, the empire-builders of Europe did not owe their initial success entirely to brute force...

...and in the present context there is no gain in remembering that the late Professor Raleigh of Oxford once warned the best of his Bengali students not to begin a dissertation on Novalis with a gene-ology tracing the descent of the German romantic back to Adam...

...and India might find it hard to preserve her integrity unless she also learns to concede that others have as much right as she to assume the moral role...

...In any case, she cannot afford a war, even outside her own borders...

...Thus, American "know-how'' enters the sphere of the occult, and its possessors are blamed for not sharing the mystery with the uninitiated...

...Here again, the United States, as the last term up to date in the evolution of Western civilization, draws to herself the jealousies of all underprivileged nations: and this seems easier to excuse in connection with India than, say, Britain or France...

...At least in India they were at first recognized as morally superior and therefore deserving of a much larger measure of material prosperity...

...Though "they write on their own responsibility, yet as collaborators neither could write exactly the book he would have written alone...

...Its tone, however, is that of optimistic do-gooders who play down basic differences in the hope of proving primarily to themselves that all men are brothers, despite every indication to the contrary...

...To quote from the preface: "The proposal for a cooperative study of Indian-American relations had its origin in conversations that took place in 1953 between Dr...

...For the affluence of Uncle Sam is hated by the rest of the world...

...Early in the next year the two organizations agreed on a plan of work and in the fall of 1954 study groups began their deliberations in New York and New Delhi...

...Yet incessant betterment and an expanding population are incompatibles...

...But the old society is breaking down fast: the composition of the ruling class goes on changing from decade to decade, and those dispossessed see in dictatorship a chance of regaining the power they wielded yesterday...

...and the only way of avoiding offense to our eyes when they gaze outward is to turn them back on the sordid interior they belong to...

...The authors of India and America are not unaware of such facts...

...and since, at least psychologically, the advocates of free enterprise believe only in unlimited profits accruing without any lapse of time between investment and income, the responsibilities of capitalism have found no real root in our soil...