By Lord Boyd Orr
Doubleday & Co.,
N. Y., 959. pp. 159. $3.75
Reviewed by Samuel Ling
After reading "What's Happening in China?" by Lord Boyd Orr, Nobel Peace Prize winner and authority on food and population problems, the reader can understand much better why so many self-styled lovers of peace have, failed so miserably to solve the problems that lead to war.
In putting into words the impressions of his visit to the Chinese mainland last winter, the author was shrewd enough to call upon the services of Peter Townsend (not the erstwhile suitor of Princess Margaret) who had lived and worked with the Chinese Communists from 1942 to 1951.
Whatever his faults as an author, and there are many, the nobleman from Scotland is honest beyond question. As if to apprise the reader of what to expect, he stated in the foreword that he preferred not to discuss "the question of civil liberties which has preoccupied some writers on China" and that he "tended to take the most favorable view of developments" on the ground that it was safer to over-estimate rather than under-estimate a potential enemy.
To his own question "And how on earth can you arrive at any conclusion about a country of over 600,000,000 people if you do not have years at your disposal?", the doughty Scotsman found a simple answer. He would concentrate on "plans and progress in the health services, agriculture and education matters with which we are well acquainted." As it developed, he not only allowed his interest to stray into other fields, but permitted himself to make observations on matters with which he has, by his own admission, little if any acquaintance.
After a visit to a cooperative farm, the author wondered aloud if it was a show-piece for foreigners. Although he was travelling in the company of a Communist guide, he did not hesitate to draw the conclusion that there was no evidence that it was so.
Deliberately passing over the question of civil liberties in discussing the communes, the former boss of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization expressed the opinion that the communes have been "an important factor in developing small-scale industries, such as backyard blast furnaces, which can put local sources of raw materials to good use." Shortly after his departure from the China scene, it became known that the backyard furnaces spewed forth so much iron of an inferior quality that even the Communists were hard put to find a use for it.
Waxing enthusiastically over the education of Chinese children, the food expert turned educator observed that tantrums and outbursts of temper went unchecked, because the Chinese shared the theory that any restraint exercised on children would cause a "psychological trauma" which would have a bad effect in adult life. Too bad our parents had never heard of the term, or else 600,000,000 Chinese would have been spared the tingling impact of the willow switch administered at the proper time and in the customary place.
Leaping to the defense of the weaker sex, the Scottish gallant lamented the fact that, before the Communist take-over, most women "were bartered and bought and looked down upon as second-class beings or human draft animals." In substantiation of his case, he quotes two proverbs which he claims to be of Chinese origin: "Horses and women—you can beat them both"; "Married to a man, a woman must walk—married to a chicken, a woman must fly." If these are Chinese proverbs, they must be of very recent vintage.
The new marriage law, in the author's opinion, provided a check against child marriages which, in some cases, involved the marrying-off to elderly men of children no more than eight or nine years old. If that was true, Mr. Vladimir Nabokov deserves a great deal of credit for having saved Lolita from spinsterhood by pairing off the 12-year-old nymphet with the elderly Mr. Humbert Humbert in his best-seller.
Another amazing discovery made by the author was that the Chinese people, unlike members of the white race, are comparatively free from dental caries. How did he come by this knowledge? He was talking to an old man of 70 who, whenever he laughed, had the unmannerly habit of throwing back his head and opening his mouth wide. As far as the author could see, the old man had every tooth in his head. Despite his age, the author must have better than 20-20 vision. Even an experienced dentist would have to peer long and hard into many more· mouths before he could arrive at such a sweeping conclusion.
Towards the end of the book, this tourist from Aberdeen called Mao Tse-tung a liberal who encouraged independent thinking and criticism. Rather absent-mindedly, he stated in the same paragraph that "no one could get a newspaper to attack Socialism or take a pro-Kuomintang line!"
The author's 20-20 vision must have greatly deteriorated towards the end of his arduous trip. He reported that, as he was crossing the border into Hongkong, he passed a Chinese Communist flag with its four gold stars. Where the fifth star had gone he did not bother to explain.
In a parting shot, the author proposed better relations between Red China and the West. One way to bring that about, he claimed, would be to give Red China a seat at Lake Success! If he insists that the United Nations is located at Lake Success, he is entitled to his opinion. After all, he has long outlived the span of three score and ten. Such inaccuracies and lapses of memory are to be expected.
Nehru—A Political Biography
By Michael Brecher
Oxford University Press, 1959, 682 pages
Reviewed by D. J. Lee
Of a large number of writings produced in recent years either in books or articles on Jawaharlal Nehru as a man, as a political leader of 400 million Indian people and as a leading protagonist of neutralism in world politics in the post war world, none is more exhaustive in treatment, better documented and more judicious in the choice of materials than Prof. Michael Brecher's Nehru—A Political Biography.
Prof. Brecher has adopted the chronological approach, covering the period from the 1880's to the summer of 1958. Other books on Nehru are not as up-to-date as this one. There are 20 chapters with 31 illustrations and three maps. The author begins the book with a chapter on "Portrait of the Man" and ends it with one on "Portrait of a Leader." Nehru's aristocratic birth, his early life as a student at Harrow, Cambridge and Inner Temple and the influence of Gandhi and the Old Nehru in shaping Jawaharlal Nehru's political life have been made so well known by other authors that Prof. Michael Brecher did not have much new to say in these connections. The most important chapters of this book are the last two, which represent the author's assessment of Nehru's leadership, his foreign policy and his place in history.
With all one can say about Nehru's unchallenged position as a leader and hero of the Indian people. Nehru is neither a great man nor a far-sighted statesman, if we judge the man by his acts. He is not invested with, those attributes. What has placed Nehru above his fellow-countrymen and other Indian leaders is his comparative honesty and personal integrity in a material sense. He is not the kind of politician that can be tempted to do anything for worldly advancement only.
That Nehru should believe in the adoption of an anti-Communist domestic policy and a pro-Communist foreign policy under the guise of neutralism has made him such a controversial figure in world politics that, in the words of the author, "His name conjures up a host of associations, some praiseworthy, some critical.... "
India's opposition to such collective security organizations as SEATO in 1954 and Baghdad Pact in 1955 in the hope that the cold war might not be brought to the borders of India is not based on a sound sense in global terms. The two giants of the Communist world, the Soviet Union and Communist China, may stand at the gates of the Indian sub-continent. But an appeasement policy pursued so consistently by India to the degree of championing the cause of Red China's admission to the United Nations will neither bring any change nor even modify the policy of world conquest mapped out by International Communists. No amount of kowtowing helps curb the aggressive designs of the Communists, Russian or Chinese. The provocative acts of the armed forces of the Chinese Communists along the Indian border today do not represent an isolated incident. If the Indian leader finds it necessary to maintain friendly relations with the puppet regime on the China mainland, it is of vital importance that such relations be maintained on the basis of equal footing. Any attempt on the part of one side to appease the other is no way of winning friends. It is not the belief of any statesman that a foreign policy based on fear will serve the best interests of a nation. That Nehru is no statesman is obvious.
The author contends that because of "India's economic weakness and the basic goal of development provide inducements to the policy of non-alignment" and "door must be kept open to all possible sources of aid, Western and Soviet." If India still believes in freedom and democracy as she once did when fighting for independence, the price for aid from the Soviet Union, or Red China for that matter, will sooner or later be paid by providing the Communists with the opportunity of carrying out infiltration and subversion until India becomes a full-fledged satellite of the Communist bloc. The only possible price that India may have to pay for receiving aid from the West is that she may have to live in fear of being identified as an enemy of the two Communist giants at her gates.
Pakistan is no more powerful than India in a military sense. But she is a member of both SEATO and Baghdad Pact. In so doing she has not brought the cold war nearer to her than it is to India.
In what respect has India, the uncommitted, "performed the necessary task of building a bridge which would not otherwise exist between the two blocs." None at all! It is unfortunate that the author has made no attempt to cite instances to substantiate his views expressed in a positive statement. On the contrary, India's double dealing in the guise of neutralism has seriously affected and weakened the faith of other newly independent democratic states and misled them to follow the bad example set by India. It is misleading to regard Nehru as a "symbol of Asia's awakening," when he merely serves as a classic example of cowardice and shortsightedness. One can be a neutral between two opposing forces, which, to be sure, do not necessarily mean that one is good and the other is evil. But to be "a neutralist between good and evil," as the author has put it, means that one prefers to be half way between good and evil. It just doesn't make sense for any one to place oneself in such a ridiculous position. Apart from doing great damage to the solidarity of the free world. Nehru's so-called neutral policy is possible of being misinterpreted by millions of his illiterate fellow countrymen to be Nehru's partial acceptance of the Communist way of life, his anti-Communist way of life, his anti-Communist domestic policy notwithstanding. In such circumstances, the Indian people cannot be expected to be well prepared to face threats from the Communist world.
In short, Nehru has failed miserably as a statesman and political leader. As an intellectual, he lacks intellectual and moral courage. As a man, he is the victim of a complex. With his thorough English education, Nehru cannot help thinking like an Englishman. But his Indian birth makes it necessary for him to act as an Indian. No matter what he is, he remains a hero to millions of his fellow countrymen.