Notebook
Auberon Waugh's capacity for stirring things up in the sub- continent, while not yet on the scale of Mahatma Gandhi's, is pretty impressive all the same. Some years ago he made some comments about Islam in the Times which prldmrited a mob to burn down the British `ntlacil Library in Rawalpindi. Just lately he has caused an Indian member of Parlia- ment to be charged with a breach of Parliamentary privilege. The MP, Mr Kush- Want Singh, writes a column in the Hin- 'Teo'? Times under the appealing title 1,1"ita Malice Towards One and All'. erilaPS unsurprisingly, Mr Waugh is his Auberon Waugh's capacity for stirring things up in the sub- continent, while not yet on the scale of Mahatma Gandhi's, is pretty impressive all the same. Some years ago he made some comments about Islam in the Times which prldmrited a mob to burn down the British `ntlacil Library in Rawalpindi. Just lately he has caused an Indian member of Parlia- ment to be charged with a breach of Parliamentary privilege. The MP, Mr Kush- Want Singh, writes a column in the Hin- 'Teo'? Times under the appealing title 1,1"ita Malice Towards One and All'. erilaPS unsurprisingly, Mr Waugh is his
hero_
'My favourite English political corn- E.,Mentator'. In his column of 6 August Mr ,,,aingh quoted extensively from an article by Mr Waugh in the Spectator on the univer- sally absorbing issue of MPs' pay. There is a Bill before the Indian Parliament to dou- ble Mp's salaries and fringe benefits, but, a, ecording to Mr Singh, Indian newspapers, 1.4 contrast to the press in Britain, have not dared to express any criticism — 'They are tao scared of being hauled up for con- tempt. So instead of directly attacking his fellow Parliamentarians Mr Singh quoted r waugh's view that 'most MPs are deep- Y unpleasant people, inspired by self- 5ust1MPortance and greed to their calling and th a.ned in it by the lowest of motives it,irp°118bant-' He concluded that for Indian s to vote themselves more money and Fitvileges would be 'wrong and morally un- justifiable'. As a result, various nOtices of a _breach of privilege were moved against Mr ingh in the Upper House of which he is a eintseill,ber. In his ruling on the matter, the t„..tairrnan of the Upper House, Mr 'IdaYatullah, described Mr Waugh's words assi,:v,erY sizzling' but concluded that Mr g „'"g'a had effectively protected himself
gainst breach of privilege by quoting the aPi
tildas of somebody else.
'thIt is worth noting, in the light of his Nsu.bsequent anti-Soviet rhetoric, that 'esident Reagan did not react initially with sniuch outrage to the news of the loss of the ,dtith Korean airliner. He set off for his behind ride on his Californian ranch, leaving ehind his press spokesman to state merely that 'the President is very concerned' and at 'the Soviet Union owes an explanation ev the "rd.' It was only later, when the that ent of i)ublic anger became apparent, the at Mr Reagan woke up to the realities of we crisis. In Britain Dr David Owen under- ° ent a similar transmogrification. Speaking b} IBC radio on Thursday night, he was t1 sY Urging President Reagan to be cool. It i."o4s vetY easy, he said, to react emotionally p these situations. It would be a test of resident Reagan's statesmanship to keep the disaster — horrendous though it was — in proportion. By next morning, it was Mr Andropov whom Dr Owen was urging to be cool. Speaking again on BBC radio, he was calling for co-ordinated international action to bring pressure on Russia to come clean. Dr Owen had also woken up to public anger in the West over the Soviet Union's action. This anger was justified. The shooting down of the airliner showed with terrifying clarity the inadequacy of international ar- rangements for the maintenance of peace. A South Korean airliner strays into Soviet air-space, and suddenly we all realise how fragile are the safeguards against nuclear disaster. The `hot line', for example, turns out to be utterly valueless. The Russians and the Americans have no way of com- municating at such moments of crisis. Despite all the explanations for it, the Soviet action remains impossible to justify. put for quite different reasons it was essen- tial for the American President to portray the Russians as either mad or wicked or both. The Soviet action had to be seen as extraordinary for there to be any con- fidence left in the reassurances of politi- cians anywhere about existing peacekeeping arrangements. It did not take long for President Reagan (and Dr Owen) to realise this, but long enough to open the eyes of many millions of people.
A fter the hullabaloo which greeted Lord Gowrie's announcement of a one per cent cut in arts subsidies a few weeks ago, it was instructive to read a letter from Marhanita Laski in last week's Times Literary Supplement. The letter was on the subject of Writers' Fellowships — ar- rangements by which writers are subsidised to reside for periods of time at institutions of learning. According to Miss Laski, who is a member of the Arts Council, 'twice as many fellowships have been set up this year as last.' One might assume from this that there had been some enormous increase in demand. But not a bit of it. 'A potential obstacle to further expansion,' she writes. 'is that, at present, not enough writers are coming forward to fill the vacancies available I would not wish to en- courage frivolous applications, but new and imaginative ones would be welcome.' Not only is there a shortage of writers wanting the available fellowships but there is also, apparently, a shortage of institutions wan- ting writers as guests, for Miss Laski goes on: 'We would also be glad to receive ap- plications from new and imaginative kinds of hosts, for there are potentially many in- stitutions and organisations that would benefit from a well-matched Writer-in- Residence.' It seems, on the face of it, ex- tremely odd of the Arts Council, at a time of financial stringency, to be so eager to ex- pand an area of its activities for which there is so little demand. Only one explanation seems possible. This is that the Arts Coun- cil, by deliberately embarking on expensive but undersubscribed schemes, hopes to make any cuts demanded of it by the Government look as severe and unreasonable as possible.
T have been rather concerned this week labout my parents, who live in happy retirement near the Somerset town of Castle Cary. Having recently learnt that their library has been invaded by dry rot, I read with anxiety in the Times about the great badger crisis in the neighbourhood. Badgers are reported to have been not only - damaging gardens but, more alarmingly, undermining the foundations of buildings. I had visions of my parents' house crumbl- ing around them. However, investigations indicate that the crisis is not as serious as portrayed. It is true that some gardens havefl been damaged, that one garden shed had been undermined, and that a woman has had to block a hole in her fence with a tin tea-tray. But the evidence does not appear to support the reports that a badger- induced earthquake is reducing Castle Cary to a pile of rubble. Badgers have been living in Castle Cary for a long time — it is one of the few places in the neighbourhood where they can live in safety, as there is much badger killing on the surrounding farms — but because of recent building in what used to be an orchard, they keep popping up in people's gardens. This causes understan- dable distress, but the reaction of some of the local people has reached a pitch of hysteria. Even people who have no special affection for badgers have been shocked by the violence of their emotions. There seems to be a lot of pent-up fury in Castle Cary looking for a suitable outlet. The badgers are the unfortunate victims.
Alexander Chancellor
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