Freedom First

Summary

Freedom First No. 272 (January 1975), edited by M. R. Masani, is a monthly issue of the Bombay-based journal of liberal ideas. Its lead article is Milovan Djilas’s tribute to the arrested Yugoslav dissident Mihajlo Mihajlov, framing his prosecution as an indictment of Communist repression of conscience. The unsigned editorial column, “Between You & Me and The Lamp Post,” surveys the Indian famine crisis of 1975, UN theatrics, threats to British press freedom, and inflation propaganda in the Eastern Bloc. Geeta Doctor examines the erosion of university autonomy in India through the Elphinstone College and Osmania University disputes. Peter Sager analyses the build-up of Soviet naval power in the Indian Ocean as a facet of Cold War rivalry. James Burnham’s “Guilty Silence” criticises the Nixon-Kissinger administration’s refusal to publicly criticise Soviet repression under the banner of detente. The issue also carries a book review of Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s biography of Max Müller, a film review of The Great Gatsby by Manjula Padmanabhan, a theatre review of the Marathi play “The Deal” (signed G.D.), a report on a seminar on multinational corporations in India, and a closing page of quotations titled “With Many Voices.” Taken together, the issue’s argumentative center is a defence of individual liberty and free institutions against both Communist repression abroad and creeping statism and interference at home.

Essays

Mihajlo Mihajlov’s Fate

By Milovan Djilas

Milovan Djilas, the Yugoslav dissident writer, reflects on the arrest (7 October) of Mihajlo Mihajlov, a Yugoslav writer of Russian parentage who has been repeatedly imprisoned for publishing criticism of the Soviet and Yugoslav systems in the foreign press. Djilas portrays Mihajlov as a man who combines Russian intellectual openness with Yugoslav rationalism, and who is deeply, if unconventionally, religious — treating Christianity not as an institutional creed but as a source of freedom from death and a rationalized relation between the individual and society. Djilas stresses that despite Mihajlov’s admiration for Solzhenitsyn, the two differ sharply: Mihajlov rejects any nostalgic return to pre-industrial, authoritarian Russia and refuses to treat all evils as products of authoritarianism alone. The continuation (p.15) describes Mihajlov as a democratic socialist who is not a worshipper of capitalism or the ‘consumer society’ but of human rights and spiritual fulfilment, and closes with Djilas’s own anguished questioning of what obligation the free world owes to imprisoned believers in freedom like Mihajlov.

• Mihajlo Mihajlov was arrested on 7 October 1974 and, per Djilas, faces certain conviction because in Yugoslavia everyone arrested for political reasons is convicted.
• His ‘offense’ is continued public criticism, in the Russian émigré and American press, of the Soviet and Yugoslav systems — a course of action legal in earlier years that new ideological currents in Yugoslavia have criminalized.
• Djilas describes Mihajlov as simultaneously Russian and Yugoslav in temperament, deeply religious but outside Orthodox institutional practice, treating Christianity as a source of freedom and a bridge to early pre-church Christianity.
• Mihajlov is characterized as a democratic socialist who opposes both restoration/subversion politics in Eastern Europe and worship of capitalism or consumer society, valuing instead human rights and spiritual fulfilment.
• Despite deep admiration for Solzhenitsyn, Mihajlov disagrees with him: he considers a return to pre-industrial Russia utopian and rejects blaming all of Russia’s evils on authoritarianism alone.
• Mihajlov’s family situation compounds his isolation: his mother, having left Yugoslavia illegally to visit her daughter and grandchild in the United States, cannot return.
• Djilas closes by questioning whether professed believers in democracy and human rights, and the wider world, bear responsibility for their indifference toward imprisoned dissenters like Mihajlov.

University Autonomy—Indian Style

By Geeta Doctor

The unsigned ‘Between You & Me and The Lamp Post’ column opens with B. R. Shenoy’s Ahmedabad talk titled ‘Famine — 1975,’ using it to indict New Delhi’s belated admission of a foodgrain shortfall and its continued reliance on American imports despite years of downplaying the crisis. The column cites William F. Buckley on the ingratitude of blaming America for the world’s food problems, then turns to the UN General Assembly’s welcome of PLO leader Yasser Arafat contrasted with its earlier refusal of a seat to South Africa, using a Laxman cartoon to skewer the episode. It closes with items on the British press’s fight against Michael Foot’s closed-shop bill (with Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe cited in the press’s defence), an item on the Deputy Minister’s parliamentary answer about India’s poor cricket performance being read out as if a state matter, praise for the Amritraj brothers’ being barred from the Davis Cup over apartheid policy against South Africa, and a joke about the fictitiousness of inflation under Communist rule in Poland.

• B. R. Shenoy’s Ahmedabad talk ‘Famine — 1975’ is used to frame the column’s opening critique of India’s foodgrain crisis and government complacency.
• The column reports New Delhi’s 10 December announcement of contracts to import 4.76 million tonnes of foodgrains, mostly from the United States, against an estimated shortfall of 7-10 million tonnes.
• William F. Buckley is quoted criticising the tendency to blame America for the world’s food and resource troubles while ignoring the benefits of free agriculture.
• The column mocks the UN General Assembly’s welcome of PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s ‘olive branch and freedom fighter’s gun’ speech, contrasting it with the Assembly’s earlier denial of a seat to South Africa.
• It covers the British Labour government’s proposed closed-shop bill as a threat to press freedom, noting Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe’s public criticism of it.
• It notes with approval India’s policy of barring the Amritraj brothers from Davis Cup ties against apartheid-era South Africa.
• A closing item satirizes Communist-bloc denial of inflation, citing a joke reproduced in Newsweek about the absence of price increases in Poland.

Indian Ocean—Soviet Machinations

By Peter Sager

Geeta Doctor surveys the erosion of university autonomy in India, arguing that autonomy — like the housework it is likened to — is noticed only when neglected. She traces the ideal to British-founded universities and figures such as Pherozeshah Mehta and Chimanlal Setalvad, who fiercely guarded institutional independence, and notes that the University of Bombay’s later vice-chancellors have not always been able to resist state encroachment, citing the state’s assumption of the power to affiliate colleges. She then details two live controversies: the Elphinstone College principal D. K. Banker’s disputed transfer, framed by him as a demotion driven by Shiv Sena agitation against non-Marathi speakers in government service, and Professor V. V. John’s warnings about resistance to a University Grants Commission proposal for greater collegiate freedom, illustrated by the earlier removal of Rector G. D. Parikh over the ‘morning colleges’ dispute. The essay closes by citing the successful defence of Osmania University’s autonomy against the state government as a rare case where the teaching profession united to protect its freedom, concluding that public opinion is the ultimate custodian of university autonomy.

• The essay frames university autonomy as a fragile, often-neglected ideal inherited from British-founded Indian universities.
• Pherozeshah Mehta and Chimanlal Setalvad are cited as historical guardians of University of Bombay autonomy against government interference.
• The State Government’s assumption of the power to affiliate colleges to the University — a right formerly held by the University itself — is cited as a precedent-setting erosion, later followed by Gujarat.
• The Elphinstone College principal D. K. Banker’s transfer to Vidarbha College is examined as a case alleged to be a ‘demotion’ driven by Shiv Sena political pressure against non-Marathi speakers, prompting a student strike and a High Court appeal.
• Professor V. V. John’s article on a University Grants Commission proposal to give colleges more freedom to innovate is discussed, alongside the earlier removal of Rector G. D. Parikh over the ‘morning colleges’ controversy led by A. N. Namjoshi.
• The successful defence of Osmania University’s autonomy against the State Chief Minister, upheld by the Supreme Court and Vice-Chancellor D. S. Reddi, is cited as a rare victory for institutional independence.
• The essay concludes that public opinion, resting on the conviction that autonomous universities are indispensable to democracy, is the ultimate custodian of university autonomy.

Guilty Silence

By James Burnham

Peter Sager analyses the Soviet Union’s build-up of naval power in the Indian Ocean as a strategic consequence of the Suez Canal’s closure and Britain’s withdrawal from ‘East of Suez.’ He traces the growth of Soviet ‘ship’s days’ in the region from 2,000 in 1968 to 8,000 by 1972-73 — far outstripping the American presence — and situates this expansion within Cold War rivalry with both the United States and China, noting that Peking views the build-up (alongside American interest in Diego Garcia) with anxiety despite its official rhetoric of superpower rivalry. Sager details the Soviet navy’s technical modernization (the Kiev-class carrier, Kara-class cruisers, Delta-class missile submarines) and its network of bunkering and repair facilities in Somalia, South Yemen, the Maldives, Mauritius, the Seychelles, and increasingly at Chittagong in Bangladesh, aided by over 100 Soviet technicians. He closes by arguing that the Indian Ocean’s centrality to global oil and trade shipping makes Sri Lankan Prime Minister Bandaranaike’s proposal for a ‘zone of peace’ unrealistic given the absence of any restraint on Soviet ambitions following the West’s disengagement from the region.

• The essay argues that the reopening of the Suez Canal in spring 1975 will let the Soviet Black Sea Fleet reach the Indian Ocean far faster, likely quadrupling the number of Soviet warships there.
• Soviet ‘ship’s days’ in the Indian Ocean rose from 2,000 in 1968 to 4,000 (1969-71) and 8,000 (1972-73), compared to only about a quarter that figure for the US Navy.
• Since 1968 Soviet naval units have made roughly 250 official port visits across 15 Indian Ocean-bordering states, and the USSR has built bunkering and repair access in Somalia, South Yemen, the Maldives, Mauritius, and the Seychelles.
• Chittagong in Bangladesh, cleared by over 100 Soviet technicians who have remained after completing the work, is identified as likely to become the first full Soviet naval base in the Indian Ocean.
• The Soviet fleet’s modernization is illustrated by the Kiev-class carrier, Kara-class cruisers with advanced rocket/radar/electronic warfare capability, and Delta-class submarines with 4,000-mile-range missiles.
• China is portrayed as anxious about the Soviet build-up despite its official framing of US-Soviet ‘superpower rivalry,’ and as sympathetic to US interest in a Diego Garcia base as a counterweight.
• The essay concludes that Sri Lankan PM Bandaranaike’s proposal for the Indian Ocean as a demilitarized ‘zone of peace’ has little chance of success given the Soviet Union’s strategic momentum.

This Side of Paradise: The Great Gatsby (film review)

By Manjula Padmanabhan

James Burnham argues that the Nixon-Kissinger conduct of detente with the Soviet Union, though presented as a break from America’s moralizing foreign-policy tradition, in fact enforces its own form of moralistic self-censorship: an official silence on Soviet repression. He observes that no US spokesman has publicly criticized the intensified Soviet persecution of dissidents, the practice of confining dissenters in psychiatric hospitals, or the Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov affairs, and that the administration opposed Senator Jackson’s effort to tie detente benefits to Soviet emigration freedoms. In six numbered observations continued from page 8 onto page 9, Burnham contends that a detente so fragile it cannot survive candid discussion of Soviet practice is not worth having, that official silence functions as de facto censorship that misleads American public opinion, that repression and denial of freedom of movement are not merely ‘domestic questions’ but expressions of the Soviet system’s totalitarian essence, that many non-Communist governments do not share Washington’s timidity (citing reactions to the Solzhenitsyn affair), that the Soviet government exhibits no comparable restraint in its own propaganda (quoting an Izvestia attack naming ‘poor liberals… anachronistic imperialist reaction, Zionist circles, professional anti-Communists, and antisemites of all breeds’), and that this asymmetry parallels similar asymmetries in strategic arms and trade negotiations, in which the US invariably appears as the supplicant.

• Burnham argues the Nixon-Kissinger ‘realist’ detente policy in fact enacts its own silent moralism by renouncing public criticism of Soviet domestic repression.
• He cites the absence of US official comment on Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, psychiatric imprisonment of dissidents, and the administration’s opposition to Senator Jackson’s linkage of detente to Soviet emigration rights.
• His first observation: detente so fragile it could be shattered by sober discussion of Soviet practices ‘can’t be worth much.’
• His second and third observations: official silence functions as systematic censorship misinforming American opinion, and Soviet repression is not a mere ‘domestic question’ but expresses the regime’s totalitarian essence, making normal relations with it impossible on Nixon’s own terms.
• His fourth and fifth observations: many non-Communist governments (unlike the US administration) spoke out on the Solzhenitsyn affair, while the Soviet government itself shows no reciprocal restraint, continuing harsh attacks on the US in its official press (Izvestia).
• His sixth observation draws a parallel between this rhetorical asymmetry and similar asymmetries in strategic arms negotiations and trade deals, with the US cast as the approaching supplicant.

The Tragedy of Being Impotent (theatre review)

By G.D.

An unsigned review of Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s biography ‘Scholar Extraordinary: The Life of Professor Max Müller’ assesses the book as a richly documented account of Müller’s rise from an obscure German ducal town to worldwide fame as a Sanskritist and popularizer of comparative philology, despite disappointment that Chaudhuri offers little explanation for Müller’s near-total posthumous obscurity by the time of the review. The reviewer highlights Chaudhuri’s account of Müller’s poverty-to-prominence arc at Oxford, his prolonged courtship of a wealthy Englishwoman related to Charles Kingsley, and the mixture of religious devotion and hard-headed financial calculation the courtship reveals in Victorian upper-class life. The review closes by crediting the book with tracing Müller’s influence on Indian thought and movements, while noting that his work on comparative philology inadvertently contributed to the pseudo-scientific myth of the Aryan race, and that the book illuminates nineteenth-century Oxford’s transformation from a lax institution into an empire-building finishing school.

• The review assesses Nirad C. Chaudhuri’s 393-page biography of Max Müller, priced at £4.75, as strong on biographical detail from letters and contemporary documents but weak on explaining Müller’s fall from world fame into near-total obscurity by 1975.
• Müller is described as a world figure for 30 years whose comparative-philology work popularized the idea of a common Aryan-language ancestry and drew condolences from Queen Victoria and the Kaiser on his death in 1900.
• The review recounts Müller’s rise from an impoverished background in a small German ducal state to a scholarly life at Oxford from age 24 until his death 52 years later.
• It highlights the prolonged courtship of a wealthy Englishwoman, niece by marriage of Charles Kingsley, as revealing a mixture of high principle, religious devotion, and financial calculation among the Victorian upper class.
• The review credits the book with tracing Müller’s influence on Indian thought and movements, while noting his philological work contributed to the Aryan-race myth.
• It notes the book’s incidental portrait of nineteenth-century Oxford’s transformation from a lax, monastery-like institution into a rigorous training ground for empire administrators.

Scholar Extraordinary: The Life of Professor Max Müller (book review)

Manjula Padmanabhan reviews the film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, directed by Jack Clayton and produced by David Merrick, praising its meticulous, faithful reproduction of Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age settings and social textures while arguing that this very fidelity to surface detail is what ultimately makes the film unconvincing as drama. She assesses Robert Redford’s Gatsby as handsome but too fashion-conscious, whereas Mia Farrow’s Daisy and Scott Wilson’s pathetic portrayal of Wilson the garage mechanic are singled out as the strongest performances, with Karen Black’s Myrtle also praised for capturing Fitzgerald’s intended mixture of sensuous beauty and coarseness. Padmanabhan concludes that despite the six-hundred real-life socialites cast as extras and the eight-million-dollar advance publicity that turned the film into a fashion phenomenon, the production is ‘a beautiful bottle imitation’ of the novel that lacks the emotional core — the ‘prima ballerina’ — that would let it transcend mere reproduction.

• Padmanabhan situates the film within the hype of its release: an eight-million-dollar advance-booking campaign and a ‘Twenties Look’ fashion trend built around it.
• She praises the film’s meticulous physical reconstruction of Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age, including six hundred real-life socialites cast as party guests and period-accurate props and costumes.
• Robert Redford’s Gatsby is judged handsome but overly fashion-conscious, more a ‘contemporary young buck’ than a man denied the high-society look his background intrinsically denied him.
• Mia Farrow’s Daisy, Karen Black’s Myrtle, and especially Scott Wilson’s performance as the pathetic Wilson are singled out as the strongest elements of the supporting cast.
• Padmanabhan’s central critique: strict fidelity to the book’s material details (‘every car, every piece of furniture’) paradoxically undermines the film’s emotional core, leaving it ‘a beautiful bottle imitation’ of the novel.

Multi-Nationals Are Not Anti-National

Signed ‘G.D.’ (Geeta Doctor), this theatre review assesses Sam Kerawalla’s production of ‘The Deal,’ Buji Chinoy’s English adaptation of Suresh Khare’s Marathi play, which centers on the impotence of a young executive, Pratap, and the wife, Vilas, he trades to his Boss on their wedding night as part of a career ‘deal.’ The reviewer questions whether the play’s premise, plausible as tragedy in its original Marathi psychological context, survives translation into English without becoming comedy, and criticizes Vilas as a poorly drawn ‘Indian Nora’ figure who never fully earns the audience’s sympathy despite the play’s attempt to cast her in the familiar mould of suffering Indian womanhood. The review credits director Sam Kerawalla’s slick scene transitions but faults the crude caricature of supporting characters (the Boss’s cartoonish Punjabi accent, the jeans-and-sneakers ‘College Student,’ the mini-skirted Secretary) and several unconvincing symbolic touches (Vilas knitting upon learning she is pregnant, Pratap reading ‘The New Class’ on his wedding night). It singles out Mamta Sahu’s sensitive performance as Vilas and Jayant Vyas’s natural, at-ease portrayal of the Joker as the production’s strongest elements.

• The review, citing Arthur Koestler, frames impotence as a common fear of the Indian male and the organizing anxiety of the play ‘The Deal.’
• It questions whether the play’s central situation reads as tragedy (as presumably in the Marathi original) or comedy once translated into English.
• Vilas, the wronged wife, is criticized as an underdeveloped ‘Indian Nora’ figure who rarely earns audience sympathy except at the very end.
• The review faults heavy-handed symbolism (Vilas knitting on learning of her pregnancy, Pratap’s symbolic wedding-night cigarette, his reading of ‘The New Class’) as ‘too banal for words.’
• Direction is praised for pacing and slick scene transitions between Pratap’s house and the Boss’s office, but criticized for crude caricature in supporting roles, including an inconsistent Punjabi accent for the Boss.
• Mamta Sahu (Vilas) and Jayant Vyas (the Joker) are singled out as the cast’s strongest performers, with Vyas’s role noted as the only one that could be cut without affecting the plot.

With Many Voices

An unsigned report on a seminar on the role of multi-national corporations (MNCs) in underdeveloped countries, organized by the Leslie Sawhny Programme at the India International Centre, New Delhi, from 21-23 December 1974. The report notes broad agreement among participants — including B. R. Shenoy and M. R. Masani — on the useful and positive role MNCs can play in developing economies like India, provided India reforms its own treatment of domestic industrial enterprise. It summarizes the seminar’s discussion of emerging trends in world trade favouring primary producers, the case for restoring greater freedom to enterprise and trade rather than pursuing autarkic import substitution, and a call for chambers of commerce and Indian industry leaders to educate public opinion and undertake a collective social audit of MNC operations to counter prevailing prejudice against them.

• The seminar was organized by the Leslie Sawhny Programme at the India International Centre, New Delhi, 21-23 December 1974.
• Participants included S. Bhoothalingam, H. P. Nanda, F. A. Mehta, A. D. Moddie, Ramu Pandit, N. K. Somani, Surinder P. S. Pruthi, B. R. Shenoy, M. R. Masani, Dilip Chitre, Hem Rai, and D. N. Patodia.
• A large measure of agreement emerged on the useful and positive role of MNCs in developing countries like India, contingent on how India treats its own industrial enterprises.
• The seminar identified prejudices against MNCs — a desire for scapegoats, equating MNCs with elitist consumption, and preoccupation with capital returns — and argued these prejudices could be substantially refuted by facts.
• It considered the disadvantages of autarkic policy and indiscriminate import substitution, recommending greater freedom to enterprise and trade instead.
• It concluded that Indian industry and chambers of commerce bear responsibility for educating public opinion about MNC contributions and for undertaking a collective social audit of MNC operations.

Between You & Me and The Lamp Post

The closing page, ‘With Many Voices,’ epigraphed by Tennyson, is an unsigned compilation of quotations drawn from October-November 1974 press sources, including The Economist, U.S. News & World Report, National Review, and the Times of India. The quotations cover William F. Buckley Jr. on Soviet untrustworthiness, Deng Xiaoping (transliterated as Teng Hsiao-ping) attacking Soviet hypocrisy on socialism, several Economist quips on Britain’s October 1974 general election and its minority-government arithmetic, Henry Kissinger on history as failed efforts, and further Economist commentary comparing global inflation to Genghis Khan’s depredations and describing Soviet negotiating toughness in the tradition of Vyacheslav Molotov. The page closes with the journal’s subscription details.

• The page is epigraphed by a Tennyson quotation and compiles short press quotations from October-November 1974.
• William F. Buckley Jr. is quoted from National Review on the reliability of assuming the Soviet Union will not keep its word.
• Deng Xiaoping (rendered ‘Teng Hsiao-ping’) is quoted from U.S. News & World Report criticizing the superpower that ‘flaunts the signboard of socialism’ while acting otherwise.
• Multiple Economist quotations address the October 1974 British general election, describing it as producing a minority government ‘at the mercy of a system of automatic minority government.’
• Henry Kissinger is quoted describing history as ‘a tale of efforts that failed.’
• The Economist compares global inflation’s economic damage to Genghis Khan’s conquests and describes Soviet negotiating toughness as being in the tradition established by Vyacheslav Molotov.
• The page ends with Freedom First’s subscription form and annual subscription rates (Rs. 5.00, or Rs. 3.00 for students).

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