Last colonial ruler looks back on his lost kingdom
Reviewed by Parshotam Mehra
East and West by Chris Patten. Macmillan India, New Delhi. Pages 340. Rs 395.

Tribute to a Sanskrit scholar
Reviewed by Satish K. Kapoor
A Great Savant: Mahamahopadhyaya Gopinath Kaviraj by Govind Gopal Mukhopadhyaya. Published by Jagdiswar Pal, Calcutta. Pages 66+v. Rs 50.

Caste system sustains poverty
Reviewed by Kuldip Dhiman
Illfare in India: Essays on India’s social sector in honour of S. Guhan edited by Barbara Harris-White and S. Subramanian. Sage Publications New Delhi. Pages 412. Price 525.

Life is exile, death final
Reviewed by Shelley Walia
Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Jonathan Cape, London. Pages 224. £ 13.99.

Forefathers of today’s Himachalis
Reviewed by Randeep Wadehra

Ancient Communities of the Himalaya by Dinesh Prasad Saklani. Indus Publishing Company, New Delhi. Pages 196. Rs 400.

Crime and Society by Jacob John Kattakayam and James Vadackumchery. APH Publishing Corporation, New Delhi. Pages xiv+176. Rs 400.

Last colonial ruler looks
back on his lost kingdom
by Parshotam Mehra

LONG before they appeared in print, both Chris Patten and his book attracted lot of media attention. As the last British Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten proved to be singularly controversial. Beijing did not quite approve of the manner in which he conducted himself, both in terms of the far from trouble-free substantive negotiations for the transfer of power and for the troublesome legacy he seemed so intent on bequeathing to Hong Kong’s new masters.

As to the book, Rupert Murdoch, the multi-media tycoon, and one of his publishing companies (Harper Collins) had initially contracted to bring it out. Later they developed cold feet. And retracted, allegedly for fear that Patten’s unfriendly references to Beijing may hit where it hurt most: Murdoch’s vast media empire, both actual as well as potential, in the People’s Republic of China.

In the event, the wary reader may be overly conscious of what the book offers from the overblown media hype of its promised delivery. Happily, they should discover, as this reviewer did, a well-argued and reasonably balanced work that merits attention and careful scrutiny.

Patten’s five-year tenure as the last Governor of Hong Kong was eventful if only because he chose to break a new path. Unlike a long line of his predecessors, he decided to introduce a modicum of democratic reform in the governance of Britain’s last crown colony. Not unexpectedly, Beijing expressed its stern disapproval, and in no uncertain terms. For a diehard, totalitarian regime would have to live with the aftermath. And not only in the tiny island! Surprisingly though many in Hong Kong were sceptical too wondering what the perfidious Albion was up to? Not a few in London were far from understanding, much less enthusiastic and put spokes in the wheel.

“East and West”, billed as Patten’s considered views “on power, freedom and the future”, is divided into three nearly equal parts. The first, “Governing”, is largely a narrative of the author’s rich if exciting exposure to the myriad problems he had to contend with in the day-to-day nitty-gritty of administering a small territory with a large and virile Chinese population but also the short and long-range prospects of its separate identity in the vast mainland.

It was here that his determination to make a departure in terms of introducing a popular, elective component in the colony’s legislative council (Legco) provoked a host of problems. And the heroic manner in which he faced and overcame these excite the reader’s interest if also his empathy. Patten was often bruised but did not cower; he made some tactical compromises but stuck to his main principles; he yielded ground on non-essentials but refused to surrender on basics. Much less kowtow to bullying tactics.

Part two of the book, “The view from Hong Kong”, concerns largely the recent financial downturn in the much-touted “tiger” economies of East Asia. And the context in which the crisis may be correctly viewed. There is also considerable debate on Asian values as distinct from the more general or western values. His broad conclusion: the West should learn “a little more about order, harmony, partnership and responsibility” from the East and need to seek “a new point of balance” in its societies. All the same, the East should give more respect to its citizens and recognise that while too much focus on rights can be debilitating, citizens “do actually have rights”.

The East must realise that men and women everywhere aspire to justice and dignity as well as economic progress and are more likely to achieve the second if they enjoy the benefits of the first.

Touching specifically on the Chinese “dilemma” which would have a profound impact on the whole of Asia, Patten acknowledges that the country has moved all the way “with praiseworthy speed” — from North Korean economics to something resembling the capitalist economy . Yet the next state of its “economic journey” may prove crucial. China’s “notoriously unreliable statistics” boil down to nearly 110,000 medium and large-sized state-owned firms, half of which are losing money. They employ roughly 120 million people, of whom about 50 million have “no useful work” to do.

Lending these firms from the state banks would probably cost about 25 or 30 per cent of China’s GDP to recapitalise, “which makes the quicksands of Japanese banks seem like pretty firm ground”. They drain away China’s high savings to bail out money-losing state enterprises and while swallowing three-fourths of the country’s investment, deliver less than half its industrial production. It will require all Premier Zhu Rongji’s managerial skills, and “some uniquely Asian set of principles and characteristics”, to see smoothly round this “double chicane”.

The third and last part of Patten’s work, “Looking to the future”, makes two significant points. To start with, the importance and role of education in reviving that palpable sense of the possibilities of human achievement. And not only in Asia. He is strongly persuaded that the importance of education is one of the “uncelebrated or at least undercelebrated” boons of globalisation. Especially in a world where jobs, ideas, information and knowledge would travel ever faster and, hopefully, with fewer and fewer restrictions. This should generate a zest and enthusiasm that would help to tackle the social and economic problems of what he aptly calls “fatigued success” in the West.

There is also a useful section on China’s dealings with the West which harks back to the Ch‘ing emperor’s letter of King George III (1794) spurning all intercourse, as the “most important” document in Chinese-western relations all the way from Marco Polo to Deng Xiaoping. It represents, Patten argues, “cultural autism” — the belief not only in Chinese superiority and uniqueness but also in complete Chinese self-sufficiency.

His own view of dealing with China is at once relaxed if also unorthodox. He would not rush after China, nor detach policy from commonsense for China is “neither a miracle about to be performed nor... a ghastly global accident waiting to happen”. All the same, it is one-fifth of humanity and what happens there is of concern to all of us.

Patten is emphatic that humouring China — acceding to Chinese sensitivities, allowing China to rewrite whatever language it is negotiating in, leaning over backwards not to provoke or annoy China, playing endlessly to what are not China’s very awesome strengths — “blights” the West’s attempts to develop any sort of sensible relationship with Beijing. Hitherto, he underlines, the West has oscillated between two extremes — flab or flint, engagement or constraint. The line of reasoning for greater engagement revolves largely around quiet rather than strident diplomacy.

Since China claims never to have been an expansionist power, we should understand its sensitive border and maritime problems — Taiwan, exploration rights in the South China Sea — and smooth the way to its playing a constructive role in the region, and the world. We should not place greater emphasis on freedom than do the Chinese themselves; encourage greater contacts; seek to bind it in a network of international agreements and give it the “face” it seeks. On the back of this sophisticated analysis rides the notion that China presents a spectacular trade opportunity and that there is no reason to get “all misty-eyed” about human rights.

Opposed to the conciliatory advantage of “engagement” are the proponents of constraint, who view China as the last “evil empire”, the litmus test of democracy’s determination to stand up for freedom. With easy access to western armaments and technology, China has built its economic strength to “bully, barter and breach” all the customary rules of international trade. If China has no intention of flexing its muscle in Asia and beyond, why is it secretly increasing its military budget so far and so fast?

China’s growing international assertiveness so evident in its missile-rattling over Taiwan, its seizure of Mischief Reef (in the Spratlys) from the Philippines (1995) and invasion of a Vietnamese natural gas field (1997) are so eloquent of its political ambitions.

Patten heavily underlines the nature of this unending debate between OHCs (Old China Hands) and OFOCs (Old Friends of China), the one steeped in the language and culture of China and the other not so much in expertise as in paid official trips, banquets, stays in state guest houses and, “in some cases”, in lots of money. And insists that it is the alleged uniqueness of China that most blurs comprehension and mangles policy-making. One is often lured into thinking that there is a special, an exact way of dealing with China, which, on close scrutiny, turns out to be one part correct to four parts mumbo-jumbo.

China should be treated like we treat anybody else — “not on the basis of voodoo or on the assumption that it requires its own rule book”.

Within an overall policy of relaxed but determined normality — “free of sticks, carrots and toadyism” — Patten offers four useful tips for negotiating with the Chinese. Do not under any circumstances let the top man go first to set the ball rolling, nor yet allow the outcome to be constrained or determined by apparently harmless initial agreements on general principles. Again, do not allow to be boxed in by the calender, nor leave any loose ends that can be used to reopen the argument.

The Chinese will do a deal with you if they feel strongly enough about it. Have the gumption to pack your bags and go home if need be. But if you have time on your hands and if it is all worth it, be very patient and let the game come to you.

Two other exhortations: never admit a mistake or apologise; never be discourteous or rude. And always stake out your position on the moral high ground. If you do not, you may be sure that the Chinese will.

A slight digression may be in order. In sharp contrast to Patten’s five-year practical experience of dealing with the Chinese, this reviewer’s theoretical analysis spread over a much longer time-frame (“Negotiating with the Chinese, 1846-1987: Problems and Perspectives”, New Delhi, 1988) yielded no different results. In the event, the tips he offers have a deep resonance to the Indian experience and expertise.

Briefly, was it right to throw up a good hand on Beijing’s non-existent claim to sovereignty (not suzerainty) over Tibet? And the time and effort invested in evolving the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (“Panch Shila”) which later the Chinese used to occupy the moral high ground and run us down on the diplomatic chessboard? Again, the downturn in the current New Delhi-Beijing relationship, a result of our earlier squea mishness in calling a spade a spade?

Chris Patten has impressive credentials. Former Chairman of Britain’s Conservative Party, he was a member of Parliament (1983-92) and a Cabinet Minister for Overseas Development (1986-89). His book reveals not only an eye for keen observation but also a perceptive mind. And rare among men in public life, rich awareness of his subject matter at the theoretical level. Well-grounded on numerous references to scholarly works on China and East Asia, “East and West” shows a remarkable felicity to put across his viewpoint directly and candidly.

Life is exile, death final
by Shelley Walia

THE achievement of Gabriel Garcia Marquez as a short story writer lies in the fact that a sense of those creative potencies which can survive social disintegration is still quick and active. It is a measure of his continuing genius as a master fabulist and myth-maker that he is able to recognise and recreate the most positive features of life.

He still retains his passion for voracious joys, pleasures of the table, physical beauty and exploring in his recent collection of 12 stories “Strange Pilgrims”, the paradox of life and death, pleasure and doom. He recognises intimately the positive and negative effects of death, and through the fabric of his own experience and fantasising, creates a world where everything must be enjoyed immediately: “Exquisite plum pastries” eaten at once, champagne downed, strong Italian style coffee gulped even against the wishes of the doctor because who knows what may happen tomorrow.

Marquez took 18 long years to write these stories, followed by a visit to Europe to verify the accuracy of his recollections. He says in the introduction: “The writing became so fluid that I sometimes felt as if I was writing for the sheer pleasure of telling a story, which may be the human condition that most resembles levitation.”

Set in Paris, Barcelona, Vienna and Geneva, the stories explore through the idea that death is the real home and life an exile, a fulfilling purpose which other storytellers fail to attain by organising the structures of ordinary experience. The characters have a dream like quality; the symbolic resources of their world are used to order and evaluate the inner structures of life in the absence of alternative forms of understanding.

All stories are, Marquez explains in the preface, “about the strange things that happen to Latin Americans in Europe”.

The fussy whore in “Maria do Prazeres” chooses her own resting place and plans her funeral ridiculously training a pet dog to visit her burial site every Sunday morning and bark there in mourning. Her mother had sold her when she was 14 to the first mate of a Turkish ship, who used her mercilessly during the Atlantic crossing and then abandoned her penniless. She has lived in Catalonia for 50 years . In a dream it has been revealed to her that she would die in three months and so she takes pains to plan her burial in a manner which is at the same time warm and desolate, but nevertheless robust.

Though she, like the other characters in the stories, belongs to an alien world and is now transported to Europe, she does not escape the typical Marquezian atmosphere of magic realism, excess and glamour. The reader is constantly taken deep into the inseparable words of reality and illusion, a journey into the heart of consciousness itself where “true memories seem like phantoms, while false memories are so convincing that they replace reality”.

In another extraordinarily funny and tragic story, a long dead girl is carried around in a coffin by her father who hopes to convince the Holy See to canonise her owing to the freshness of the corpse. Reminiscent of the Kafkan mode, the story “I only came to use the phone” concerns a woman driver with a car breakdown who is picked up by an asylum van and taken to a madhouse. Her husband is persuaded of her madness and she is finally abandoned to asylum life.

“Seventeen poisoned-Englishmen” is an unpretentious story of an old widow on her way to meeting the Pope. Repelled in Naples by the sights of a group of English tourists, she decides to stay elsewhere, only to discover later that all of them die consuming out-of-season oyster soup. She is nauseated by their pink knees which resembled, in Marquez’s comic description, “slabs of pork hanging from hooks in a butcher’s shop”.

On reaching the harbour she sees in the sea “floating face up, aimless, a mature, bald man of unusual natural dignity, with open, joyful eyes the colour of the sky at dawn. He wore full evening dress with a brocade waistcoat, patent leather shoes, and a fresh gardenia in his lapel. In his right hand he held a little square package wrapped in gift paper, and his pallid iron fingers were clenched around the ribbon, which was all he had found to hold on to at the moment of his death.” Behind this bizarre description lies the author’s consciouness of the painful degenerative process we call life.

“The trail of your blood in the snow” is another strange story in which a newly married girl from Columbia bleeds to death on her honeymoon in Paris from a finger she has pricked on a rose bush. The unpleasantness of death here and in the other stories is hidden under the wild, dreamy and passionate nature of these inhabitants of Latin America who “live and die by the heart” and not by reason like the prosaic Europeans. Nevertheless, the Mediterranean world they visit remains as exotic, sensational and romantic as their Caribbean. These are people and circumstances “only dreams and nightmates can accommodate.”

In “ Love in the time of cholera” or “The General in his labyrinth” Marquez had romanticised old age, but here in these stories, he makes death salubrious and wholesome. Coffins are perfumed with roses, a sight of murder exudes the scent of strawberries, sleeping pills are “golden”, hovels shimmer in the scorching sun, expensive rings look like coiled serpents, and all this is described in story after story with a well-cut sensuousness. Ambitious, hallucinatory and perfectly poised on the edge of the chasm, “Strange pilgrims” is a brilliant book about death and doomed ecstasy, reminding one of the former queen of Belgium praying aloud throughout the funeral of her husband and smiling with pleasure at the thought that she would finally meet him again in her next life.

Marquez emerges here as the master of a style distinguished by an extraordinary verbal felicity wedded to a content in which disparate fragments of reality crystallise into organic totality. He organises and controls the swift-moving, exciting narrative of his short stories with the unobtrusive brilliance of a craftsman, affirming the powers of instinct and intuition in their struggle against the constraints of life.

The dangerously subjectivist elements of his sensibility are transcended; but the method through which they are surmounted, while in one sense objective, retains the grain and bias of a personal perception. And why should these stories be very strong on human or social actuality when the only intention is to create a fantasia of emigres and expatriates in a world which, like the stories, has no end and no beginning.

The still, smoothly painted characters and the situations they fall into with their disquieting surrealistic details, leave a deep impact on the reader’s mind.

Caste system sustains poverty
by Kuldip Dhiman

Never before in recorded history were there so many two-legged creatures on this planet, and never before have they ever multiplied at such an astonishing rate. By the time you finish reading this review, 2000 more children will have been added to the world population, and before long the number of people in this world will touch the mindboggling figure of six billion. The world population has doubled in the past 40 years, and what must set the alarm bells going is the fact that last billion has been added in the past decade!

And in a country like ours, which is already overpopulated, there are other issues that need to be addressed, most of which are directly or indirectly related to the population explosion. Will there be sufficient food, proper health care, decent education, enough work for the millions added every year? Can the yawning gap between the haves and the have-nots ever be bridged? Will we ever solve the caste problem? Has corruption become part of our culture, and is our judicial system just?

Dedicated to the memory of the late S. Guhan, Professor Emeritus, the Madras Institute of Development Studies, and a highly respected civil servant and scholar, “Illfare in India” tries to grapple with such puzzling and seemingly intractable issues. Being a collection of 13 in-depth essays covering various socio-economic issues such as population, health, education, economy and poverty — supported by detailed tables and charts and equations — this book will delight the serious reader.

What is “illfare”? The editors, Barbara Harriss-White and S. Subramanian, have coined a word that is the supposed to be the opposite of welfare. “We dispense with the polite convention,” they say, “of employing a ‘nice’ appellation for a subject only to end up discussing precisely its opposite.”

“Population and development revisited” by Robert Cassen, visiting professor at the London School of Economics, deals with the problem of population growth for development at the individual and national level, especially in the Indian context. There are people, who believe that overpopulation is a burden on society; and there are others, especially those who live below the poverty line, who believe that a new born comes into this world not only with a mouth, but also a pair of hands.

Malthus feared that if population kept growing in geometric proportion, one day it will outrun food supplies. But Cassen sees no evidence of this happening. Food output in India has continued to grow faster than population, at 2.5 per cent annually for foodgrains and 2.7 per cent for all crops between 1970-71 and 1990-91.

K. Nagaraj of the Madras Institute of Development Studies, addresses the complex issues of “labour market and the employment generation programmes in his paper “Labour market characteristics and employment generation programmes in India”. “There is one important point regarding the nature of the states at the two ends of the unemployment spectrum. . . . states like Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, which have very high levels of unemployment, can also claim to be relatively more advanced or modernised in socio-economic terms in the country. . . . In sharp contrast, at the other end of the spectrum, we have states like Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan — with low levels of unemployment — which are generally considered backward in socio-economic terms.”

One of the points the author makes is that higher levels of poverty are associated with higher levels of “feminisation” of the labour force, “the sex ratio for workers is distinctly higher for the poor sections. This is because while the male work participation rate tends to decline with higher levels of poverty, the female work participation rate tends to increase”.

Barbara Harriss-White expresses concern over the disabled, and the low priority they get in state welfare agendas. No one has made a systematic study about how the disabled make a living, and how they adjust to society, and society to them. The author feels that disability and poverty are closely related. “In a country with mass poverty, it is also possible that poverty causes disability. The mechanisms include malnutrition, inadequate access to preventive and curative medical care, and risks of accident or occupational injury. . . . It is society which is disabling rather than people who are disabled.”

P. Radhakrishnan, professor, the Madras Institute of Development Studies, looks into the caste system in “Caste, politics and the reservation issue”. “As social discrimination is the essence of the caste system of which the bulk of Indians have been victims, it is only to be expected that this principle, aimed at helping such victims, should lead to much populist rhetoric, and have a close nexus with caste constituencies — which are its principal claimants and beneficiaries — and vote-bank politics.”

We often boast rather loudly about our 5000-year-old culture, but we conveniently overlook the blackest spot on our culture — the caste system, in fact, most of us, including the so-called highly educated ones, even defend it. They argue that the caste system was originally nothing but a division of labour, that society was not divided into four watertight compartments in the Vedic times.

They all forget the fact that our scriptures are full of social discrimination: wasn’t Eklavya “sacrificed” to ensure the supremacy of the high-caste Arjuna? These enlightened gentlemen wouldn’t be speaking in these terms if they were treated as slaves, if they were not allowed to enter a temple, if they were made bonded labourers, and if they were denied all basic rights. It was hoped that Independence would result in the death of the caste system, but that is not really happening. M. N. Srinivas made an apt remark in the fifties, “with the coming of democracy, caste system got a new lease of life”.

Other papers by V.R. Muraleedharan, D. Jayaraj, Venkatesh Athreya, Manabi Majumdar, Sriram Panchu, S. Janakarajan and Paul Seabright are very well written and very informative, and if they are not commented upon here, it is only because of lack of space. The piece de resistance of this book is “Public action and inequality” by the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze based on their book “Economic development and social opportunity.” One factor responsible for social inequality is the deprived sections themselves The authors express their impatience with the “patient man” who is too resigned to his fate, too lazy to improve his lot, and too happy to be played for a sucker by the powers that be who have “reason enough to rely on the unending patience of the neglected and deprived millions, who have not risen in fury about illiteracy, hunger, illness or social insecurity. The stubborn persistence of these deprivations has much to do with that lack of fury”. The government lacks political will to solve these problems.

After the devastating 1943 Bengal famine, why has India successfully managed to escape famines? In a democracy, the authors reason, a government that has to “face criticism from opposition parties and free newspapers, and that has to see re-election, cannot afford to neglect famines, since most famines are conspicuous miseries which can be easily brought into the arena of public discussion by newspapers, opposition parties and active Parliamentarians. . . . However, the reach of public criticism can be less effective when the deprivations are less extreme, more complex to analyse and less easy to remedy, as in the case of regular — but not too extreme — undernourishment and economic insecurity, and lack of medical care for endemic diseases”.

The authors stress on the role of public activism at local level in influencing government policy. For minor problems such as misuse of public funds by officials, misuse of materials, absenteeism, etc. local pressure can be a lot more effective than any legal action from the centre.

The editors and publishers deserve compliments for good printing and high production values. The cover design should have been a little more inspiring, though. Economists, sociologists, NGOs, professors and students will find this book a welcome addition to their reference library.

Tribute to a Sanskrit scholar
by Satish K. Kapoor

THIS book pays a glowing tribute to Dr Gopinath Kaviraj, a profound scholar of Indian philosophy, an explorer of the realms of consciousness and a thorough gentleman. He was a unique interpreter of Vedic and Tantric wisdom and brought forth the fundamental unity behind the Indian schools of philosophy. His erudition and spiritual proclivities earned him the title “Sachala Vishwanath” — “A living or loving Visvanatha”.

Born in a Bengali Brahmin family on December 7, 1887, at Dhamrai, a hamlet in Dhaka district (now in Bangladesh), Gopinath Kaviraj received education at Dhaka, Jaipur and Allahabad from where he earned his master’s degree in Sanskrit in 1913 bagging the first position. He worked as a librarian at Saraswati Bhawan at Government Sanskrit College, Varanasi, and later served as Principal of the same college.

During his tenure as librarian he delved into the labyrinths of manuscripts and other unexplored writings and published more than 70 works. After taking voluntary retirement, he undertook academic work besides taking spiritual guidance from Swami Vishuddhananda Saraswati of Varanasi, well-known for his supernatural powers.

“What he had learnt at the feet of another great master, Sivaramakinkara Yogatryananda, who had revealed the secrets of the scriptures to him, was now verified through his initiation in yoga by Swami Vishuddhananda,” observes the author.

Gopinath Kaviraj received a number of honours for his versatility and wisdom. The British government bestowed on him the title Mahamahopadhyaya in 1934. He was also given the Coronation Medal in 1937. The Indian government honoured him with Padma Vibhushan in 1964. Many Indian universities and cultural organisations of merit recognised his contribution and announced degrees and awards.

The book amply succeeds in portraying the multifaceted personality of Gopinath Kaviraj. Despite being a collection of papers written at different periods of time, it is presented in a well-knit form.

Forefathers of today’s Himachalis
by Randeep Wadehra

HISTORY and mythology are intricately woven in the Himalayan region’s folklore and culture. The Himalayas are the abode of several ancient communities like the Kols, Tangan-Pratangan, Kinnars, Bhotiyas, Nagas, Yaudheyas, etc. However, the present volume concentrates on the ancient ethnography of the region comprising Kumaon, Garhwal and Himachal Pradesh.

Various theories propounded in respect of the origin and evolution of the 16 “ancient communities” have been examined in this volume. For example, western scholars conclude that the Bhotiyas of Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti are of Tibetan origin. However Saklani points out that there is strong evidence that they are in fact Raghuvanshi Rajputs, the descendants of the Bhill-Kirata tribe.

Saklani has researched both literary and archaeological sources. Relevant information from the Sukla-Yajurveda, the Atharva Veda, the Samhitas and the Brahmanas has been culled and analysed. The Puranic records like the “Mahapuranas” and the “Up-puranas”, the Buddhist texts, the Jain canonical texts are all treasure troves of information on these ancient tribes.

Modern records like G.C. Traill’s “Statistical Sketch of Kumaon” (1851), Fuhrer’s “Monumental Antiquities and Inscriptions”, etc. too have been considered. Others who had written on the different aspects of history, culture and traditions of the Himalayan tribes are Sylvan Levi, E.K.Pau, J.B. Fraser, Alexander Cunningham, T.S. Negi, Mian Goverdhan Singh, Sukhdev Singh Charak, B.D. Pandey, etc. Art architecture and sculpture have been investigated and elaborated.

This book deals comprehensively with social, economic, political and religious factors that have effected the evolution of these hill people.

The Himalayas are in turmoil. Various ethnic, religious and linguistic groups are showing disturbing inclinations to violence. The music emanating from the cataracts, vales and meadows is becoming increasingly discordant. In this context it becomes imperative that we understand the people who inhabit the region. The books that play the static role of merely recording the past do have their own value. This volume, like countless similar ones, only tells us what was. But to study the dynamics of a changing society is far more valuable. It gaves a timely feedback to thinkers, administrators and rulers on the realities actually obtaining in the various segments of our society.

How one wishes that the author had devoted space, time and resources to study the response of these ethnic groups to the challenges that inevitably accompany the march of civilisation. Investigation into the different processes of adaptation to relentless socio-economic metamorphosis in the hills would have give us some insight into the causes of unrest in the mountainous regions of India.

Doesn’t one find it extraordinary that most of separatism, insurgency and related violence has been almost exclusively emanating from hilly regions? The J&K “ethnic cleansing”, the Darjeeling disturbance, the Assam movement, the Naga, Mizo and other insurgencies in the North-East. Has it something to do with the attitudinal bias of the plainsmen towards the less sophisticated hillsmen?

* * *

While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal class, I am of it. While there is soul in prison, I am not free.

— Eugene Victor Debs

CRIME is on the rise. So what’s new? Criminals once formed society’s lunatic fringe. They were the dregs and the down-and-outers scurrying around in darkness, preying on any one who was naive enough to stray into the caliginous realm. Today they rub shoulders with our elite. It is difficult to say whether all this is the end result of criminalisation of politics, or of politicalisation of criminals.

Some would go so far as to assert that law-breakers have become our ruling elite. Harsh judgement that, but not easy to contradict.

The authors have given the usual reasons for this dismal state of affairs. But how to check the spiralling crime? They point out that whenever a crime is committed the public demand for the arrest of the criminal rises to a crescendo. “Arrest a person and humiliate him in public” is the solution popular among the ruling elite and the common people alike. The authors caution against such a mentality. They would like to remind us about the existence of the “Convention Against Torture... to which India is a signatory’’. Should we then, like Voltaire, proclaim “La crainte suit la crime, etc’ est son chatiment, (Fear follows crime, and is its punishment)” and let things take their own course?

In this regard, a close look needs to be taken at the way juvenile delinquents are treated. Sir Sydney Smith once remarked, “No child is born a criminal: no child is born an angel: he’s just born”. This is where the role of society becomes vital. Unfortunately, our perspective has become so jaundiced that we are unable to look at a problem as common to all of us.

Another area that needs close scrutiny is our judicial system. It is overloaded with court cases that tell stories that range from farce to tragedy. For example, one daily hears of the “redoubled” efforts to provide inexpensive and prompt justice. However, according to the Government of India’s National Crime Records Bureau, during 1995 the number of cases pending with different courts on charge of murder 84.7 per cent, rape 83.1 per cent, sexual harassment 71.4 per cent, burglary 83.8 per cent... one can go on, but the authors have made a telling point — justice delayed is justice denied. And it certainly does not come cheap.