74 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
interpretation of the political and economic relationship between tl^ Soviet Union and India, which is ignored entirely, a most puzzling matter—accuses me (fraternally) of a number of sins of omission and commission.
The last sub-heading in the review refers to ^incompleteness' and ^fatalism'. In the short revision of the same review in Peoples Democracy (October 30, 1977), the same charges are made, and with as little basis. I would concede^incompleteness' in a broad sense, of course. What book is ^complete', what politico-economic analysis of India has ever been, or could be? Such an abstract and idealist model of perfection should not be so readily adopted by any Marxist critic; Deficiencies and inadequacies yes, ^incompleteness', no.
^Unfortunately', writes Madhu Prasnd 'Sclbourne having successfully undertaken the task of unravelling the links between every facet of die emergency and the ^ttempt;s of a faction to serve ruling class interests,, seems to be unable to restore complexity to th^ political crisis which he has bared down to essentials' (my emphasis). What is the point of this criticism? What purpose is served — politically, intellectually, ideola"? gically, objectively in ^unravelling the links', an4 then re-'rewdlwg them, which is what y®ur critic app^ai-s to be demanding? This is pure academicism t<
In the same paragraph, I am told that I ^dismiss* the ^historic defeat' ofihe Congress with the words, Inss^d,. debacle'; and that I there return to ^the continuity of deprivation wd oppression in the lives of the people'. To the last, I readily plead guilty, because I was right to do so, as the post-Congress period shows. But there is no dismissal of the Congress defeat with two words, as your reviewer improperly suggests. First^ many times in the book's text, I refer to the political problenais ©f legitimizing a tyranny, and I point throughout to the l&etBibad ef aft election,
Then, when it is announced, I seek to explain its reasons, how^ ever insufficiently. It was designed to provide under the pressure of deepening internal party hatreds and divisions,, and the emergency's political and economic failure, all opportunity to purge party dissentients and silence critics, by appealing over their heads to the Indian people' (p 363). Yes, I say a ^deb^cle' followed, as indeed it was. But this is not ^dismissive', it is the criticism which is casual. For in the same paragraph, I state that fthe accumulated anger of the people overrode the obstacles of fear and coercion. The election proved suicidal not to the opposition but to the ruling faction, the reaping of a whirlwind (pay emphasis). Is this a dismissal of the election? What I refused to do in the text, and refuse to do now, is to have any illusions about the Congress defeat, and its significance for the well being of the people,
Then come two paragraphs in Madhu Pras^d's review which seem to me very careless in a critic. The assertion that I ^see the overthrow