Sikhs, no breakaway Hindus they
Review by M. L. Sharma
Practical Sikhism by N.S. Dhillon. Published by the writer, Mohali. Pages 133. Price not mentioned.

Media women are victims of male prejudice
Review by Kuldip Kalia
Women and Media edited by Pradeep Mathur. Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. pages vi+106. Rs 120.

The quaint men in quest of truth

Editor, how close are you to self-praise?
by Nirmal Sandhu

Mr Editor, how close are you to the PM? by Vinod Mehta. Konark Publishers, New Delhi. Pages 239. Rs 295.

THOSE who wish to buy this book expecting Vinod Mehta to share his (mis)adventures of bringing out such diverse publications as Debonair, The Sunday Observer, The Indian Post, The Independent, The Pioneer and Outlook are in for disappointment.

The much-sacked editor packs all his experiences in a nineteen-and-a-half page introduction which leaves the reader feeling like a woman who is aroused but not satisfied. How could he hold himself from sharing with the reader his experiences as editor of Debonair at the young age of 25 with two charming ladies as assistants? Why did Ambani men come after midnight and tear out stories from the front page of The Sunday Observer? The problem with this self-and-market-proclaimed successful editor is that he fondles a subject, stimulates interest and then lets the whole thing fall flat.

Vinod Mehta has put junk on sale — already-published write-ups on politics, media and movies plus diaries, book reviews, etc. “Much of what I have to offer is clearly dated and of little value, indeed rubbish,” he cheerfully admits and blames conceit and the desire to see how his writing has evolved rather than the temptation — so common among editors — to leave a legacy for posterity.

An editor needs to be doubly cautious about what he writes, specially if he has a reputation for hearing what he likes to hear and has flatterers as friends. Had he consulted an informed well-wisher, Vinod Mehta could have avoided certain foot-in-mouth statements.

“Do I have some advice to offer ?” he asks in the introduction and then answers: “Absolutely not,” forgetting what he wrote a few paragraphs before: “I have arrived at some do’s and don’ts which I offer with humility to editors and budding editors.”

His tips — (a) get what you can from the boss in the first three months; and (b) do not quarrel over small things. These are unlikely to add to the knowledge of editors who generally love to give, and not receive, advice.

His observations on editors are anything but startling. Who in the profession doesn’t know that editors have “a tremendous fondness for entertaining and being entertained by the high and the mighty,” and they love “banter, gossip, chit-chat, easy access to those in power”?

Or, even this one is hardly profound: “The single most important freedom an editor commands is the freedom to criticise those who claim to rule.”

Since the only job Vinod Mehta seems to be familiar with is that of editor, he writes mostly for and about his clan or a few correspondents and columnists he launched.

Newspaper production is impossible without team work. Behind any successful publication is the collective effort put in by a dedicated workforce ranging from the editor down to the hawker. Vinod Mehta launched several successful and attractive publications, but nowhere does he say a word about the “unsung heroes of journalism”. He keeps the spotlight on himself:

(a) I was and am the youngest editor this country has produced;

(b) I introduced India’s first media column;

(c) I started the practice of using mug shots of writers of edit page articles; and

(d) If “magazine-isation” of newspapers has become the norm today, I can take some credit for the development.

Can one imagine great editors like S. Mulgaokar and B.G. Verghese advertising themselves like this? Mulgaokar wrote numerous edit page articles in Indian Express with his initials “SM” appearing in 10 points at the end, almost buried under the grey matter.

It is not that Vinod Mehta’s editorial triumphs — amply demonstrated in the marketplace and that too despite a near famine of talent in journalism — are in doubt, but praise sounds dignified if it comes from others.

Should one buy this book? No, just borrow it, read the introduction and the article “Does anyone in Delhi want to read this paper?” written in 1991 when he put together The Pioneer, and the rest only if you are turned on. Chances are the lender would not want the book back.

Media women are victims of male prejudice
by Kuldip Kalia

Women and Media edited by Pradeep Mathur. Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. pages vi+106. Rs 120.

The demand for the media to act as an instrument to empower women in a competitive environment reflects how the media is expected to conduct itself in the present social structure. Often woman is projected as a sex object, which raises the question of a positive portrayal of woman. In order to facilitate cultural integrity and develop a discerning attitude, what is needed is a real change in the social order.

The book under review focuses on both the problems faced by women in the media and their contribution. Also it highlights the role of the media in the empowerment of women.

The media, by and large, is confined to the middle and high rungs of society. More so in the urban areas. Discrimination in employment, low perception of their capabilities, higher cost involved in employing them by way of maternity leave and setting up creches, undesirability of posting women at certain places and, above all, the risks involved, including sexual assault while performing certain tasks or assignments, are some of the factors responsible for low participation of women in the media or developmental activities.

Besides, religious taboos and social degradation also have a negative impact on their active involvement. Generally speaking, women get attention either as passive consumers like readers, viewers and listeners, or actively playing the role as directors, producers and journalists.

Women as journalists are not a welcome lot. They are either discouraged or kept out of political coverage where risks are many and challenges abound. Newspapers usually assess the performance of journalists by their work on politics and economics. Thus the obsession with political news has given a big jolt to the cause of women emloyment.

Such a generalisation should not underrate the capabilities of women because there are women journalists who have successfully covered such events as riots, civil war, election campaign and political upheavals. Thus P.B. Sawant has rightly emphasised the need for giving due place to women in the media.

There is the strange male psyche that women should not remain unmarried by choice and any exception is branded as a “ruined woman”. She is never taken seriously. Then there are routine cases of sexual harassment. Ironically, women journalists are often looked down upon as denizens of the red light area.

Publication of nude, seminude, obscene and vulgar pictures of women is increasing day by day. Compulsions of market lead the media to portray women as a commodity and undue importance is given to the female sexual appeal. There is, perhaps, hardly any movie which is without a scene of sexual violence and assault or a sexually suggestive frame. So much so, the body movements are always in a provocative form.

Even in the print media, commercialisation has reached a point where it has become the determining criterion for the display of news items. It is the beauty contest which gets a front page coverage. Incidents of bride burning and dowry death rarely get editorial treatment and the report is usually dumped in an inside page. The obsession with the political and economic events has ultimately neglected women-related issues such as health, nutrition, female foeticide and infanticide. Women are projected either as victims of tradition and always in a negative way. These inhuman actions are never treated as a violation of the dignity and human rights of the victims.

The role model is fixed by male-dominated society and a woman is expected to live with it. She has to be either a Sita or an achiever, and must fit in the framework of the man-made media.

Ironically, most of the crimes against women are said to be modelled on television programmes. The censor board has failed to uphold standards of public decency and ethics. Moreover, there is nothing like a women-only issue and any attempt to generalise it tends to trivialise things, particularly those which are seen differently when the interest of both sexes are involved such as prohibition.

Anyhow, the media must act as an empowering instrument of women. But social and political empowerment is always linked to economic development. However economic policies have already failed woman. Frankly speaking, it has displaced her from the traditional household. Moreover the media has an immunising effect on society to women issues. Perhaps nothing is possible without a change in the attitude of man.

We all must remember that women can be “brilliant without being beautiful, competent without being sexy, and a producer of wealth without being reproducing human species”. Technological abuses have certainly helped the media (negatively) in producing pornographic audio-visual material under the garb of investigating sensitive issues like sex rackets.

Sandhya Jain rightly says: “Create awareness rather than perpetuate apartheid in society.” Efforts must be made to crack the so-called “glass ceiling”.

Sikhs, no breakaway Hindus they
by M. L. Sharma

Practical Sikhism by N.S. Dhillon. Published by the writer, Mohali. Pages 133. Price not mentioned.

THE “Hindus are inclined to regard the Sikhs,” says Huston Smith in his book, “The World’s Religions”, as “somewhat wayward members of their own extended family, but the Sikhs reject this reading. They see their faith as having issued from an original divine revelation that inaugurated a new religion.”

The revelation was made to Guru Nanak after he mysteriously disappeared while bathing in a river, reappearing three days later. The core of this faith is universal brotherhood: no distinction of caste, creed and colour; all are the offsprings of the same God (Ik Onkar).

If you look at Sikhism from any angle, unlike Judaism or Islam, all faiths seem to be in complete accord with it. In the book under review Dhillon has endeavoured to provide relevant information relating not only to Sikhism but also to other religions.

Dhillon believes that nothing can take place in the universe without the grace of God. The divine grace and blessings are the only means to secure benefits in human life. According to him, man should pray to God to bless the whole existence for all times to come. He should seek forgiveness for his shortcomings or moral trespasses.

Regarding meditation, he says, instead of meditating upon any image or statue, one should meditate on God’s blessings, His grace and His attributes. One should keep meditating on the marvels of God in all aspects of life.

The credit for binding Sikhism in unity and in freeing Guru Granth Sahib from the clutches of jealous kith and kin of the spiritual masters goes to Guru Gobind Singh. Some unscrupulous beings had taken possession of the holy book from Guru Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh guru. It is by means of an oracle that the tenth guru recalled the contents of the scripture and dictated them to Bhai Mani Singh who wrote it in the Gurmukhi script. The utterances of Guru Tegh Bahadur were added to it, giving it the present sublime form, of course with a little variation.

The book provides detailed information on Sikh ceremonies . Unlike Hinduism, there is no priestly class in Sikhism. Anybody — male, female, old or young, who is well versed with the contents of the holy book and processes of the ceremonies — can conduct Sikh ceremonies. Men and women are equal in the presence of Guru Granth Sahib.

The chapter on marriage ceremony is exhaustive. The author has a word or two for the married couple: “The experience, confidence and faith gained during the married life go a long way in enhancing the achievements of the union with God.” Spiritually speaking, “God is the only husband in the universe whereas all the existence are His wives.”

Dhillon does not support conversions. His advice is meaningful in these days of religious conflicts arising out of conversion. In his concluding remarks, he says one should study religions with a broad, liberal and open mind, not with a view to establishing the superiority or inferiority of any religion.

The author, who has authored several books on Sikhism, is a retired captain of the Indian Army, now settled in the United Kingdom. In this book he has also provided the essence of other faiths like Hinduism, Confucianism, Shintoism, Moism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.

However, one comes across here and there a few factual errors. He mentions Id-e-Milad, Muharram, Bara Vafat, Karbala, Shab-e-Barat, fasts and the like as the main festivals of the Muslims. Actually, Id-ul-Zuha and Id-ul-Fitr are the only two main festivals. There is Namaz of Isha and not Asha. There is no mention of the three other voluntary prayers (namaz).

The word “kafir” is wrongly translated as pagan. Infidel (kafir) is one who voluntarily rejects the ministry of Prophet Mohammad and the Koran but a pagan, “suckled in a creed outworn”, does not believe in religious practices and rituals.

Maoism is not a religion but a school of thought in Confucianism. It is actually Mohism. Mo Tio was a social philosopher who advocated Mohism, which preached, “One should feel toward all people under heaven exactly as one feels toward one’s own people and regard other states exactly as one regards one’s own state” (Huston Smith). The glossary given at the end of the book is useful.

When a concept was born
by Shelley Walia

The Origins of Postmodernity by Perry Anderson. Verso, London. Pages 143. £11.

POST-MODERNISM is a cosmopolitan, multimedia affair which began in the field of architecture. Some would argue that it was then carried into the field of the arts and humanities and by 1960 literary critics belonging to the old Left such as Harry Levin, Irwing Howe, Frank Kermode and Ihab Hassan began using it.

In this movement, the critical establishment began to deplore the lack of seriousness and the contempt for the unified literary work. The appreciation of the popular directly came into clash with the long-standing movement of modernism which to them was of crucial importance owing to its belief in the autonomy of art from bourgeois culture.

Perry Anderson in his recent book “The Origins of Postmodernism”, goes further to add to the debate about who first conceived and developed the idea of post-modernity and how its meanings have been deeply amorphous and unstable. The answers take him from Lima to Angkor, to Paris and Munich, to China and the stars. And at the centre of his argument is Frederic Jameson’s “The Cultural Turn”.

Anderson sets out to offer a more historical account of this idea than is currently available. He begins by suggesting that it is more of a phenomenon than an idea. He rejects the notion that modernism and post-modernism were born at the centre of the Anglo-American and continental world. It was actually Ruben Dario, a Nicaraguan poet, who is responsible for the use of the term modernismo, which indicated his withdrawal from the Spanish past.

And the idea of post-modernism surfaced in the Hispanic inter-world of the 1930s. It was Federico de Onis who first used the term post-modernismo and “it was not until some twenty years later that the term emerged in the Anglophone world, in a very different context — as an epochal rather than aesthetic category”.

It was Arnold Toynbee, who in his “Study of History” had argued the rise of deep hostility to nationalism, suspicion of industrialism and decolonisation and in his eight-volume work published in 1954, that he “dubbed the epoch that had opened with the Franco-Prussian War the post-modern age”.

Anderson traces the lengthy history of post-modernity from Arnold Toynbee and the shaggy Whitmanism of Charles Olson, from Leslie Fielder to Jean-Francois Lyotard and architect Robert Venturi.

Anderson smokes out Habermas, as does Lyotard, with his hostility to eternal, metaphysical truths and totalising explanations. The local conditions are favoured over any holistic view which is counterattacked by Habermas who insists that complete immersion in the local gives no way to judge it comprehensively. Habermas prefers an unconstrained consensus formation and an emancipation through reason, but this emphasis is relegated to an obsession with identity-based practices of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie of the West.

Habermas forgets that art reflects the material reality of the day and his ideas jar with the inspired liberation movements of the sixties onwards. Media images, a common linguistic usage and educational curricula are all crucial sites of oppression against which the New Left would like to wage a potentially transformative struggle through the exuberant valuing of heterogeneity, through parody and other disruptive narratives.

Thus, post-modern populism opened the door to heterogeneous voices, mixed genres and breaches of decorum. This anti-foundationalism is at the heart of “postal” politics, a kind of a positive feeling aiming at transcending a negative ideology of the Enlightenment project. Perry Anderson’s book enables us a re-reading of the lengthy provenance of post-modernity and its concommitant interest in non-western voices.

It is not possible to pinpoint the origins of any movement exactly in time. But in the case of post-modernism it can be said that it began with the blowing up of a building, designed in the Le Corbusierian school in St Louis, Missouri, at 3.32 pm on July 15, 1972. It announced the end of a rationalist utopia, a dream of a planned and rectangular world which could replace the turmoil and economic depression of the thirties.

It is in fact the highjacking of the dissident rationalist utopianism for the high modernist project of capitalism that modernist culture gets caught up in. In the post-World War II era the technocratic being is to the fore, but with this explosion the modernist dream of a wholly new technocratic being is ditched.

“Ulysses”, which was regarded as a crazy novel, or “The Wasteland” held in its early years as a nonsense poem of no significance; entered the academy in the forties. It is because of the partial incorporation of the modern that post-modern comes into existence. The marginality of the modernist artist which was connected with elitism is now incorporated into the daily existence of a captalist society in which Fordism is out and small-scale production is the order of the day. The year 1972 forms a cusp between the post-war era of “never-so-good” times and the Reagen-Thatcher era when the welfare state is out and we see the human subject not so securely centred, but caught on the hop between an onslaught of different types of media.

We are now in the age of Derrida, a new phase of multicultural capitalism with its ceaseless circulation of information, codes and signs. It is the age of the signifier in isolation, a reality that is built on a collective make-believe world where fiction and reality merge together producing a collage city with its pluralist and decentered architecture where you cannot find your way out, a contrast to the monastic austerity of modernism which based itself on the user-friendly notion of all creation.

The city now cannot be totalised as in the case of Corbusier’s experiment. The underlying lurking totality is now unavailable. You cannot see anything as a whole and God does not exist in the western variegated world. The system can no longer be conceptualised or tangibly represented. And the buzz word is “difference” at the centre of which lies an artificial homogeneity. Levis jeans are available from Botswana to Boston.

The artist now under the reactionary movement of post-modernism can no longer be regarded as an ascetic or an exile, and no one can possibly have contempt for the given. It is, to an extent, a giving in to the forces of capitalism. It is concerned not only with the changes in style, but with how much society had changed. It was a move to pull art back into the arena of daily life and close the border between art and society.

Though like modernism, melody and harmony are put aside, and direct pictorial representations abandoned, blurring the distinctions between genres giving rise to fragmented forms and discontinuous narratives, at heart the movement cannot have any regret at this abandonment of the divine pretensions of authorship as is obvious in the joyful dance of pastiche and parody.

The chronological link between these two enigmatic and eclectic movements can be dissolved by retrospectively redefining the aspects of modernism as post-modernism through emphasising the highly volatile nature of the latter’s connection with the politics of identity and ideology. There is a difficulty in bringing out a clear-cut consensus in the meaning of the two terms, both of which are elusive and semantically unstable. My view is that one is rather straitjacketed and elitist, generating hatred and a disquiet exclusivity, a Corbusierian notion of turning a house into a machine for living in, which at its very outset rejects the much desired liberating phenomenon lending a certain exhilaration to fragmentation and the escape from the fixed master-narratives of belief.

The high idealism of modernism is opposed by rejecting the distinction between the high and the popular. Bad taste mixtures, excessive gaudiness, a borrowing from all types of architectural schools from different periods, the use of colourful and bizarre mixtures of imagery, viewpoint and vocabulary within literature go up in a riot only on the surface without any urge to go to the deep structure or significance of in-depth study which a literary education trains us to seek out.

The French post-structuralists Derrida and Foucault repudiated the lament for a lost sense of purpose and the loss of a system of values. Habermas would stand against them once again asserting order and unity, identity and security, which philosophers like Lyotard would not agree with. Experimentation would still be favoured with the aim of ending meta-narratives of authority which have an overarching and totalising programme that only creates illusions of power. Post-modernism would be more interested in creating mini-narratives which give in to the anarchy of relativism and provisionality, thereby ensuring a significance of the minority voices with all its local colouring.

Homogeneity smothers all difference, opposition and plurality with a view to creating a unitary end of history. In this hegemonic strategy lies the very nature of narratives that throw a pall of “reality” that misrepresents and ignores the surface-depth duality or the real/imagined working of all phenomena.

Representation as simulation is what is ignored by the strong following of master-narratives. Everything is a representation of a representation and therefore suspect.

This might give the impression that such a movement is confined to negative dialectics and deconstruction. Or that it is a rhetorical creation of periodisation when something negative appears after a negative age.

Conversely, it can be taken as a positive reaction against a negative ideology that permits the questioning of western tradition and knowledge by the re-reading of history from the non-western perspective. Isn’t any movement in history a combative opposition to what has gone before it? The pathos-ridden world-view of modernism has finally come to its logical conclusion with the happiness that we approach the syndrome of endism.

Perry Anderson, one of the foremost thinkers in British intellectual life, has written a bold and original book on the debatable issue of the origin of post-modernity. Fred Inglis, Fellow at Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, pays glowing compliments to his contribution to the formation of “far-from-complete-coming-to-maturity” of a British intelligentsia: “Pretty well single-handed, he fashioned an entirely new syllabus of Western Marxism: he built a cadre of deeply impressive and serious-minded lieutenants who gave New Left Review its hospitable and, within the church, ecumenical synod”.

The sole survivor of Anderson’s narrative is Fredric Jameson who as Orwell put it, “takes a header into the cesspoll”. More than any other living cultural theorist, Jameson studies the phenomenon of the popular ranging from the comic strip to the bizarre buildings and S and M wardrobes.

The logic of late capitalism is at the heart of his arguments, but he has no solution to the onslaught and the victory of the petit-bourgeois; he can only go on loving and living his America, while an incisive account of our cultural logic is still awaited by us.

Maybe it will finally be Perry Anderson who will, through his remarkably insightful writings, give us a refined analysis of our age. He has already spoken at length on culture, both domestic and public, and we can decipher his anger at the coarseness and crassness in recent cultural studies. He is impatient with the stereotypes emerging at present and hardening the mindset of a generation which is definitely in need of a public-spirited and sensitive mind to break its status quo.

The quaint men in quest of truth

WHO were these apostles whoform the theme of the book under review? Words have a definite connotations and are open to various interpretations. The word “apostle” refers to the 12 chosen men sent out to preach the Christian Gospel or the first Christian missionaries. In the present context, they were the members of the “semi-secret” Society at Cambridge between 1890 and 1940 which became the recruiting ground of the intellectual aristocracy and had a decisive influence on the intellectual, political and philosophical life of Britain for much of the present century. These extraordinary intellectuals are the subject of “The Cambridge Apostles, 1820-1914: Liberalism, Imagination and Friendship in British and Professional Life” by W.C. Lubenow (Cambridge University Press, pages 458, £ 35).Were the apostles a gang of conspirators or ivory tower lightweights cut off from the reality of contemporary life who were absorbed in cultivating their own garden unobtrusively or a family of “strayed and dissenting aesthetes”? Or were they, as a later historian remarked, responsible for every ill which affected English society? In this literary work of high order the author shows that they shared some common values, and maintained and valued friendship over a long period. However, they did not worship a common God, nor did they inspire a movement or social action to help humankind. There were fundamental differences among them. Their lasting contribution in the realm of ideas cannot be denied. They worked for the freedoms and opportunities which are now taken for granted.

G.M. Trevelyan, Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Henry Sidwick, E.M. Forster, Wittginstein, G.E. Moore and Virginia Woolfe were the outstanding figures of this group. Curious about the how and why of things and bubbling with ideas, they were anxious to challenge the accepted notions and received wisdom. They were the questioners of things established. Nothing was taken for granted. They discussed, debated and scrutinised almost all that existed between the earth and the stars.

On his sick bed Henry Sidwick dictated a memoir of his early years in which he described the spirit in which the apostles settled the fundamental issues that agitated their mind. He wrote, “Absolute candour was the only duty that the tradition of Society enforced. No consistency was demanded with opinions previously held truth as we saw it then and there was what we had to embrace and maintain and there were no propositions so well established that an apostle had not a right to deny or question, if he did so seriously and not out of mere love of paradox.”

According to Lubenow, the apostles made desperate efforts to charter a new course and prided on being innovative in their intellectual pursuits. Their object was to pursue truth. They discussed general ideas rather than the specifics without straining for effect.

Henry Sidwick wrote, “No part of my life at Cambridge was so real as the Saturday evening on which apostelic debates were held and the tie of attachment to the Society is much the strongest corporate bond I have know in life.”

G.M. Trevelyan, the historian, Lord Macaulay’s nephew has provided a succinct account of the activities of the Society in his short autobiography which he produced just after his retirement as Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. He noted that in his time before World War I discussions were mainly political, about imperialism and radicalism. However, the mood changed in the twenties when interest turned to Marxism. Of the 31 members elected during 1927-39, 15 were Marxists or communists but after the war not a single Marxist was to be seen.

The creative output of the apostles was prodigious. It was the sheer quality, range and brilliance of their literary work that made them famous. Virginia Woolfe’s “The Waves” was a class by itself which gave a fictional account of a group of friends that stood alone in modern literature.

John Maynard Keynes’s “The Economic Consequences of Peace” (1919) proved a powerful and popular tract imbued with European vision. It sold 1,00,000 copies and as the 20th century unfolded, its relevance became apparent.

Lytton Strachey’s “Eminent Victorians” became a classic that revolutionised the very concept of biographical writing by demolishing the notion of making heroes out of history. Bertrand Russell cast his net wide and profoundly influenced contemporary thinking.

A.S. Main and F.W. Maitland made historical jurisprudence a respectable subject. Because of John Sheppard’s dedication, the previously obscure Cambridge College became the political and social force that it has been for the past 75 years.

About the extent of influence that worked as a stimulus on the life of a generation of people, Lubenow quotes Sir Donald MacAlister’s claim that “the voice that issues from the hearth rug on Saturday night has gone through all the earth, its sound to the world’s end. It speaks in Senates though men know not, it controls preoccupations and powers; it moulds philosophies, it inspires literature.”

Admission to the Society was difficult to secure. How was recruits to the Society identified? There were fierce disputes over the election of new members. Keynes recalled a “dreadful discussion which almost killed us when the members were divided over the election of a classical scholar, Gerald Shone”. Once elected, the apostles were expected to attend the dinner every Saturday evening during the term.

They would present their paper to the group and the members would subject it to a minute analysis. There were questions and answers and the discussion went on for hours. Novel themes were chosen for discussion. In fact, any anomaly in existing knowledge was used to expose its limitations.

Lubenow is a distinguished political historian,well-known for his authoritative work on “Liberal Party and the Home Rule Crisis of 1880s”. He has traced the careers and achievements of the apostles elected between the foundation of the Cambridge Conversazione Society in 1802 and 1914, when his study ends.

Keynes has provided a brilliant portrait of some of his contemporary members of the Society in his memoir “My Early Beliefs”, a short work reflecting a precision of thought and expression. In fact, this highly stimulating and readable work is an intellectual biography of his fellow apostles whom he described as unworldly without being saintly, scholarly without being pedantic, humane without being sentimental, and unambitious without being insensitive.

According to the author the apostles turned out to be sober-minded, public-spirited, problem-solving individuals willing to undertake a great deal of the “world’s drudgery in a good cause”. That is why he selected as subtitle “Liberalism, imagination, friendship in British intellectual and professional life”. The most striking feature of the apostles, the author emphasises, was to bring duty and imagination to bear on the task of creating a new aristocracy. This he successfully keeps before the reader throughout his book.

Lubenow lays emphasis on the professions and connections of the apostles with organised religion or with the new civil service. The best chapters in the study are those relating to their close friendship. The apostles greatly appreciated the value of friendship. E.M. Forster wrote, “If I were to choose betraying my country and my friend, I should have the guts to betray my country”.

Lubenow’s range is wide and he flits from one theme to another. It appears as though the material handled by him, though in his inimitable style, does not hang together, and there is no summing up. At best, these are “dispersed thoughts”. The whole work suffers from a degree of diffusion. That is why it becomes difficult to identify the chief features of the minds of these individuals.

They wrestled with ideas but it was not the skill of conversations which they greatly admired, but intellectual honesty and the pursuit of truth for its own sake. “They had no models to worship”, they stood on their own but drew inspiration from the life of Socrates, “the brightest and wisest of men”. Keynes paid them a handsome tribute: “But it is they who are the beacon in the tempest and they are more, not less, needed now than ever before. May this succession never fail.”

The quaint men in quest of truth.