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How Readers reacted to Ashok Mitra's latest column

'In a land bereft of intellectual talent, Haksar was a giant'

Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1998 14:34:22 -0400
From: Ravi Aron <rarunkun@stern.nyu.edu>
Subject: Ashok Mitra

Mitra's narration of Haksar's life and times is quite predictably entwined with a eulogy to the Left and its machinations. Haksar and his shenanigans -- egging Indira Gandhi on to her socialising agenda -- deserve censure and condemnation.

Instead of acting as a fetter on Gandhi and her unbridled populism that finally led to the Emergency, he aided and abetted her. The impact on the polity is for all to see.

Perhaps somebody should point out to the columnist that we are now in the 25th anniversary year of an episode that chronicled the grievous legacy of Communism and its socialist apologists. It was in December 1973, that Alexander Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago was first published in Paris and thundered across the world from there.

In this year and month, let us remember the evil that Communism had wrought. When men of refinement and intelligence such as Haksar abandon their morals to serve expedient ends, men like Solzhenitsyn will surely rise to remind us of our values.

Ravi Aron

Date: Sat, 13 Dec 1998 23:00:00 +0530
From: Sanat Kaul <secylnb@del2.vsnl.net.in>
Subject: Ashok Mitra

Ashok Mitra's analysis is good but not good enough.

Haksar was an aberration in the Indian scene. In a country bereft of intellectual talent, where moral values are at their lowest ebb, he does appear a giant.

But was he really a giant? A political tactician of a very high calibre does not make an intellectual or an original thinker.

He was a highly egoistic man who reached a position of extreme power and was able to use it well without making a fool of himself.

The foolishness shown by Rajiv Gandhi and, of course, Sanjay Gandhi and hangers-on does show Haksar in an outstanding light.

However, for any comparison, we need to look at his equals or people who could tower him: Haksar then would not appear such a giant.

L K Jha and B K Nehru are two examples who come to mind who he despised intellectually but could not take them on. Intellectual brilliance and strategic cunningness are two different things and should not be confused. Mitra has tried, deftly, to bring this out.

To call Amartya Sen a sham and not deserving of the Nobel economics prize is a pure case of intellectual arrogance without any personal backup.

Sanat Kaul

Date: Sat, 06 Oct 1998 12:13:47 +0530
From: Naveen Luijben <cybercafe@cyberdude.com>
Subject: Ashok Mitra

We can see the all-pervasive effects of Communism in West Bengal. The state has travelled from being an industrial capital to charity capital of India, known more for Mother Teresa, and, of late, Aussie cricketer Steve Waugh, than anything else.

As a Bangalorean, I can vouch for the real benefits that globalisation has got us. We are literally making a difference in this world. Period. I want more and not less globalisation.

Naveen

Ashok Mitra