Unlike the spate of instant histories of the emergency, says reviewer GIRILAL JAIN, the book written by the Oxford don, David Selbourne, is clearly a work of painstaking research. But the author has spoiled his scholarship by trying to fit facts into an ideological straitjacket. The result has been a … Read More
The country needs a national debate in order to reach a consensus on an appropriate economic policy and it will be helpful if the protagonists of different viewpoints resist, the temptation to quote and Gandhiji and Mr Nehru in their support. Since the two leaders wrote voluminously over a long … Read More
There is much to commend in Mr Kuldip Nayar’s The Judgement. But essentially it is instant history and its true merit cannot be assessed so long as Mr Shah does not complete his inquiry into the emergency and Mrs. Indira Gandhi does not give her side of the story. Indeed, … Read More
It may not be quite fair to say that the Union government has been sitting idly by in the face of a virtual reign of terror in the Kashmir valley. But it cannot seriously dispute that it has allowed the situation to deteriorate to a dangerous point and it cannot … Read More
The forthcoming election in ten states and two Union territories may well turn out to be far more significant than was thought possible on April 18 when the Union home minister, Mr. Charan Singh, took the country by surprise and announced that he had “advised” the Congress chief ministers in … Read More
One of the many stories regarding Mr Gromyko’s recent visit to New Delhi has it that when the Soviet foreign minister expressed the fear that under the new dispensation this country may move away from socialism, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee said to him: “But how can that be? In a … Read More
Since the Congress party has hurt itself badly in recent years, specially during the emergency, the process of recovery is at best likely to be slow and involve a setback now and then. But the four-day session of its working committee, the resignation of Mr Borooah and the expulsion of … Read More
The repeal of the obnoxious Prevention of Publication of Objectionable Matters Act has provided an occasion to some MPs and others to revive their old demand for delinking newspapers from business houses and to raise related issues regarding the role of the press in a democracy. This is as it … Read More
Foreign policy hardly figured as an issue in the recent elections to the Lok Sabha and it is not likely to figure prominently in the national debate in the months ahead. But while this does indicate a broad national consensus on major questions of foreign policy, it does not mean … Read More
There is no greater indictment of the top Congress leadership than the fact that a single person without the backing of a private army was able to impose the emergency in utter violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the Constitution. Such a thing could never have been … Read More
