Freedom First

Summary

This is the June 1976 issue (No. 283) of Freedom First, edited by M. R. Masani, published during the Indian Emergency. The issue opens with Masani’s own “State of the Nation,” a reprint of his October 1975 letter to Encounter magazine (with a December postscript) describing censorship, detention without trial under MISA, and the suspension of Freedom First’s own publication pending a High Court writ against censorship — a suit the magazine won in November 1975. The rest of the issue ranges well beyond domestic politics: a World News item on the British Royal Commission on the press; Dimitri K. Simes’s essay on the Soviet Union’s illegal “parallel market” in goods, services, medical care, and expertise; A. G. Noorani’s review of two books on the break-up of Pakistan and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s rise to power; Ernest van den Haag’s philosophical defence of market distribution against socialist claims to distributive justice; Geeta Doctor’s review of a Performance Group production of Brecht’s Mother Courage; a short item on Andrei Amalrik’s forced exile from the Soviet Union; and a closing page of aphoristic quotations, “With Many Voices.” The throughline across the disparate pieces is a classical-liberal suspicion of concentrated state power, whether exercised through Emergency-era censorship in India, central planning in the Soviet Union, or authoritarian rule in Pakistan.

Essays

State of the Nation

By M. R. Masani

M. R. Masani’s “State of the Nation” reprints, at readers’ request, the letter he wrote to Encounter magazine (published January 1976) describing the state of India under the Emergency as of 31 October 1975, with a postscript bringing the story to 5 December 1975. Masani, writing as a former politician now viewing events “as a student of history,” catalogues the machinery of the Emergency: detention without trial under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act, incommunicado holding of Jayaprakash Narayan and other detenus, press censorship that bars comment on the Emergency, Parliament, and the Prime Minister’s own court case, and the suppression of even routine news such as a civil liberties conference in Gujarat. He argues India is not a full-blown fascist or communist dictatorship but a reversible “limited form of authoritarianism,” and sets out the liberal’s proper posture: neither romantic defiance nor craven fear, but a disciplined effort to assert citizens’ rights within the bounds of legality. He surveys the economic backdrop — stagnant per-capita consumption, a demand recession, and the need for a reversal of Five Year Plan priorities toward agriculture and consumer goods — and closes by noting Sanjay Gandhi’s surprising public argument against nationalisation in a censored press otherwise silent on the subject. The postscript reports Jayaprakash Narayan’s release from detention in poor health and Freedom First’s own court victory over press censorship on 25 November 1975, with further appeal expected.

• Reprints Masani’s letter to Encounter (Jan. 1976) on the state of the Emergency as of 31 October 1975, plus a postscript to 5 December 1975.
• Details press censorship, detention without trial under MISA, and incommunicado treatment of Jayaprakash Narayan and other detenus.
• Argues India’s Emergency is a reversible ‘limited form of authoritarianism,’ not fascism or communism.
• Sets out the liberal democrat’s proper stance: assert citizen rights within legality, avoid both romanticism and fear.
• Surveys economic stagnation — declining per-capita consumption, demand recession — and calls for redirecting Plan priorities to agriculture and consumer goods.
• Notes Sanjay Gandhi’s public remarks against nationalisation, permitted to appear despite the general press blackout on Emergency commentary.
• Postscript: Narayan released on parole in bad health; Freedom First won its High Court suit against censorship on 25 November 1975, pending appeal.

World News: British Press: Royal Commission’s Recommendations

An unsigned World News item summarising the interim report of the British Royal Commission on the Press, formed in 1975 amid anxiety over Fleet Street’s financial prospects. The Commission finds the industry’s financial position poor and cash flow critical at many houses, recommends cost-savings through productivity improvements rather than manpower cuts alone, and concludes that medium-term financial assistance is needed. It favours drawing that assistance from the private sector rather than government, on the view that public-sector aid risks partisan government influence over newspapers and that independent, non-governmental monitoring would be required if public funds were used. The piece closes by affirming the Commission’s view that a healthy, independent, and diverse press is indispensable to a democratic society.

• Reports the Royal Commission’s 1975 interim report on the financial crisis facing British national newspapers.
• Commission recommends cost-savings via productivity gains and acceptable working-method changes rather than manpower cuts alone.
• Assistance should be drawn from the private sector, since public funding risks partisan government influence over the press.
• If public funds are used, independent (non-governmental) monitoring is required to avoid accusations of partisan interference.
• Concludes that a healthy, independent, diverse press is indispensable to democracy.

The Soviet Parallel Market

By Dimitri K. Simes

Dimitri K. Simes describes the vast, illegal “parallel market” that operates alongside the official Soviet economy, arguing it is not a temporary product of shortage but a permanent feature born of the inefficiency of state distribution. Ordinary citizens rely on it daily for apartment repairs, redecoration, spare parts, taxis, medical care, legal services, and private tutoring, typically by offering tips, bribes, or personal connections to get reliable service that the official system cannot supply. Even government firms, collective farms, and industrial enterprises use the parallel market to obtain equipment, manpower, and expertise unavailable through official channels, and by the late 1960s informal research and consulting firms had sprung up, run by moonlighting scientists and engineers, that built reputations for reliability precisely because they operated outside guaranteed state employment. The piece (continued on page 14, included in this rendered set) argues the Soviet leadership tolerates a degree of parallel-market activity despite its evident contradiction with a totalitarian system’s need for total control, because the alternative — eliminating it — would collapse a system that has become functionally dependent on it; a small minority of speculators and thieves are still treated as criminals, but others working ‘for a good cause’ enjoy new leniency.

• The Soviet parallel (black) market is permanent and structural, not a temporary shortage-driven phenomenon.
• Covers goods (clothing, spare parts) and services (repairs, taxis, medical care, legal services, private tutoring), obtained via tips, bribes, or personal connections.
• Government firms, farms, and enterprises also use it to secure equipment, manpower, and expertise unavailable officially.
• Informal research/consulting firms staffed by moonlighting scientists and engineers emerged in the late 1960s, prized for reliability official institutions lacked.
• Nearly everyone in Soviet retail management is said to break the law routinely to keep operations running.
• The regime has grown more tolerant of parallel-market activity ‘for a good cause,’ even as it still prosecutes speculators and thieves as criminals.
• Simes argues the entire Soviet economic system may be unable to survive without the parallel market.

Bhutto’s Pakistan

By A. G. Noorani

A. G. Noorani reviews two books on Pakistan’s collapse and the rise of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto: Herbert Feldman’s The End and the Beginning: Pakistan 1969-1971 and Meenakshi Gopinath’s Pakistan in Transition. Noorani finds Feldman informative but analytically confused, faulting his thesis that Ayub Khan alone bears responsibility for Pakistan’s dismemberment and noting Feldman’s own acknowledgment of the isolation Pakistani writers suffer from outside news and ideas. He rates Gopinath’s book more scholarly, tracing Bhutto’s climb through the failed Forward Bloc manoeuvre within Ayub’s Convention Muslim League, his break with the establishment, and the 1967 launch of the Pakistan People’s Party built on rejection of Ayub’s authoritarianism, socialism, and an ‘independent’ foreign policy wrapped in appeals to Islam. Noorani details Gopinath’s account of the PPP’s 1970 election manifesto (anti-SEATO, anti-‘imperialist-neo-colonialist,’ pro-Vietnam), Bhutto’s demagogic and personalist party organisation, and the authoritarian methods — press controls, arrests of editors and publishers — Bhutto turned to once in power, met in turn by peasant and worker unrest in NWFP and Lahore. The review closes by relaying Gopinath’s own ambivalent verdict on Bhutto’s rule and Pakistan’s democratic prospects, and a wry aside that no one is likely to write a book called ‘After Bhutto, Who?’

• Reviews Herbert Feldman’s The End and the Beginning: Pakistan 1969-1971 and Meenakshi Gopinath’s Pakistan in Transition.
• Feldman’s book judged informative but ‘hopelessly confused’ analytically; his thesis blames Ayub Khan for Pakistan’s break-up.
• Gopinath’s book judged the more scholarly account of Bhutto’s rise via the PPP, founded 1967 after his split from Ayub’s Convention Muslim League.
• PPP’s 1970 manifesto: anti-SEATO, anti-imperialist, pro-Vietnamese, opposing ‘imperialist-neo-colonialist’ powers.
• Once in power, Bhutto ruled by authoritarian methods — press curbs, arrests of editors and publishers — provoking peasant and worker unrest in NWFP and Lahore.
• Gopinath’s verdict is ambivalent: credits Bhutto’s talent and the PPP’s mobilising role, but questions whether legitimacy can be confused with mere numerical strength.

Interaction of Politics and Economics

By Ernest Van Den Haag

Ernest van den Haag argues that the market’s distribution of income, though independent of moral criteria such as justice, cannot be legitimately displaced by socialist systems that claim to distribute according to moral merit instead. He distinguishes economic desert (the market value of one’s services) from moral desert (virtues such as courage or generosity), arguing that the felt discrepancy between the two — and the political attempts to bridge it — is the true source of dissatisfaction with income distribution. Any political system of distribution, he contends, would rely on political merit (skill in gaining power) as arbitrarily as the market relies on economic merit, and socialist systems have not in practice achieved more real distributive justice while sacrificing efficiency and individual freedom. Van den Haag traces the psychological and social history of attitudes toward poverty — from fatalistic acceptance, through resentment fuelled by shrinking distance between rich and poor and by mass media, to the modern view of poverty as social pathology and injustice — and shows that poverty (by the US government’s own relative measure) has in fact declined sharply over fifty years even as resentment of remaining inequality has intensified. He closes (continued to page 13, included in this rendered set) by warning that inflation and welfare policies erode the market system by the same populist political logic, though he draws qualified hope from Karl Popper’s rejection of historicism — while conceding his own prognosis offers no confident remedy.

• Distinguishes ‘economic desert’ (market value of services) from ‘moral desert,’ arguing their non-identity is the root of dissatisfaction with market income distribution.
• Argues political systems of distribution rely on political merit (skill in acquiring power) which is no more just or equal than economic merit.
• Claims socialist systems achieve less individual freedom and no demonstrably greater distributive justice than market systems.
• Traces changing social perceptions of poverty: from natural/fatalistic acceptance to being seen as an injustice and ‘social pathology.’
• Notes that in the USA, the proportion of families below the (relative) poverty line fell from 50% in 1920 to under 11% in 1966, even as resentment of inequality intensified.
• Warns inflation and welfare policies are, alongside outright socialism, erosive threats to the market economy.
• Closes on a qualified, uncertain note, invoking Karl Popper’s rejection of historicism as the only source of optimism.

Enduring with Mother Courage

By Geeta Doctor

Geeta Doctor reviews the Performance Group of New York’s production of Brecht’s Mother Courage, staged at the quadrangle of the Cathedral School under Richard Schechner’s direction, with Joan McIntyre in the title role. She describes the deliberately uncomfortable, immersive staging — no fixed seats, scaffolding, gunny bags on the floor — as achieving the ‘Verfremdung’ (alienation) effect Brecht demanded, forcing the four-hour audience into continuous physical and emotional re-engagement rather than passive spectatorship. Doctor recounts the play’s plot and Brecht’s own theory of theatre (strong lighting, actors not identifying with roles, scenes designed to make political points inescapable), situating it in the context of Brecht’s flight from Nazi Germany and his Communist commitments. She judges the production a success on Brecht’s own terms: rough, gentle, humorous, and disorienting by turns, though she notes some spectators found the sensory and structural fragmentation simply a ‘cacophony of discordant noises and actions’ rather than meaningful theatre — a reaction she suggests the Performance Group would itself accept as within the scope of their intentions, comparing it to their similarly fragmented, booth-structured Vietnam play in the United States.

• Reviews the Performance Group of New York’s staging of Brecht’s Mother Courage, directed by Richard Schechner, with Joan McIntyre as Mother Courage.
• Staging was deliberately uncomfortable and immersive: no fixed seats, scaffolding, gunny bags, four-hour running time.
• Doctor situates the production against Brecht’s own theory of ‘Verfremdung’ (alienation) and his Communist political commitments formed while fleeing Nazi Germany.
• Describes the plot: Mother Courage’s wagon-trade through war, and the deaths of her children Eilif, Swiss Cheese, and Kattrin.
• Judges the production a faithful and powerful realization of Brecht’s intentions, praising the ensemble cast’s control of role-distance.
• Notes some audience members experienced the fragmented, multi-focus staging as mere noise rather than meaningful theatre, and compares it to the Performance Group’s booth-structured Vietnam play in the US.

After KGB Harassment, Amalrik Accepts Exile

A short unsigned news item reports that dissident writer Andrei Amalrik, after years of imprisonment and Siberian exile followed by a campaign of KGB police harassment, has reluctantly agreed to emigrate abroad. He and his wife Gyusel, a painter, are not Jewish but have accepted suggestions from Soviet authorities that they apply to emigrate to Israel, and plan to travel first to the Netherlands and then the United States. Amalrik is quoted saying the decision was not taken freely and that, as a writer born in his country, he never wanted to leave.

• Reports that dissident writer Andrei Amalrik has agreed, under sustained KGB harassment, to accept exile abroad.
• Amalrik and his wife Gyusel (a painter) are not Jewish but were pressured to apply to emigrate via Israel.
• Their planned route is first to the Netherlands, then to the United States.
• Amalrik states the decision was not taken freely, given his identity as a writer born in his own country.

With Many Voices

“With Many Voices” is the issue’s closing page of compiled quotations from the international press (Guardian, Encounter, The Economist, Time, International Herald Tribune, and others), gathered under an epigraph from Tennyson. The quotes range across wit on Cold War politics, the Soviet gerontocracy, Mrs Gandhi’s shifting political positioning, egalitarianism and inflation, and literary asides on Agatha Christie — functioning as a miscellany of aphoristic commentary rather than a single argument. The page also carries a subscription form for Freedom First.

• A compiled miscellany of quotations from international press sources (Guardian, Encounter, The Economist, Time, International Herald Tribune, etc.), March-April 1976.
• Covers Cold War politics, Soviet leadership succession, Mrs Gandhi’s political manoeuvring, and the definition of a ‘statesman.’
• Includes a quotation warning that ‘egalitarianism + materialism = inflation.’
• Carries the Freedom First subscription form on the same page.

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