The Indian Libertarian

Summary

In the rendered pages, this 1 February 1958 ‘Sheikh Abdullah Special’ of The Indian Libertarian (Vol. V No. 22, the Bombay fortnightly edited by Miss Kusum Lotwala) is dominated by the Kashmir question and Indo-Pakistan relations. The editorial responds to Pakistan Prime Minister Feroz Khan Noon’s reported threat to Indian nationals, raises ‘some pertinent questions’ about the security of Muslims and refugees, and warns of a revived Razakar movement in Hyderabad. The lead articles in the rendered pages turn on Sheikh Abdullah’s renewed agitation in Kashmir: M. A. Venkata Rao examines ‘Sheikh Abdullah and Indian Policy’, defending a firm, secular Indian line while criticising the Nehru government’s vacillation, and Sumant S. Bankeshwar’s polemic ‘Sheikh Abdullah: The Mad Mullah on the Rampage’ attacks the Sheikh as a communal demagogue. ‘Lal’ contributes a sharp anti-Nehru piece, ‘Nehru: The Trouble-Maker’, and M. G. Bailur offers ‘The Ethics of Toleration.’ In the rendered pages the issue’s later items listed in the contents — including Charles A. Willoughby on ‘Western Strategic Blind Alley’, Howard Fast’s ‘Open Letter to Soviet Writers’, George Richmond Walker’s ‘Answer to World Dilemma’, and the Soviet-economy and book-review sections — appear only in the contents box, not as fully rendered article text.

Essays

Sheikh Abdullah and Indian Policy

By MA Venkata Rao

M. A. Venkata Rao’s lead article treats Sheikh Abdullah’s arrest and the Kashmir tangle as a test of Indian policy. He argues India’s case rests on secular nationalism and the rule of law rather than on appeasement, faults the Nehru government’s hesitations, and weighs the danger of Abdullah’s renewed agitation against the integration of Jammu and Kashmir into the Indian union.

• Frames Sheikh Abdullah’s detention and Kashmir as a test of Indian secular policy.
• Criticises the Nehru government’s vacillation on Kashmir.
• Defends Kashmir’s integration into India on national and legal grounds.

Sheikh Abdullah: Mad Mullah on the Rampage

By Sumant Bankeshwar

Sumant S. Bankeshwar’s ‘Sheikh Abdullah: The Mad Mullah on the Rampage’ is a hostile portrait of the Kashmiri leader, charging him with communal demagoguery and with endangering the Valley’s accession to India. The piece invokes Nehru, Maulana Azad and other Congress figures in arguing that indulgence of Abdullah’s agitation has emboldened him.

• Casts Sheikh Abdullah as a communal agitator threatening Kashmir’s accession.
• Faults Congress leaders for indulging his renewed agitation.
• Written in the polemical register of the ‘Special’ issue.

Nehru: The Trouble-Maker

By Lal

Writing under the pen-name ‘Lal’, this article, ‘Nehru: The Trouble-Maker’, delivers a blunt indictment of Jawaharlal Nehru’s leadership, holding him responsible for unconscious blunders in domestic and foreign policy. It contrasts Nehru with Gandhi and invokes Jayaprakash Narayan and Maulana Azad in arguing that Nehru’s incapacity for clear thinking has made him a source of national trouble.

• A pseudonymous polemic blaming Nehru for policy blunders.
• Contrasts Nehru’s leadership unfavourably with Gandhi’s.
• Cites Jayaprakash Narayan and Maulana Azad.

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