MALAISE IN INDIA
SIR,-1 am afraid that in his comment on my article Mr. Pocock may have been misled by the date-line; for in the course of my recent two months' stay in India I spent only four days in the capital; the rest of my time was spent wholly in Rajputana and Western and Central India. I can assure him, and your readers, that I have not exaggerated the potential implications of the present `Kshattriya Revival,' the existence of which, I was interested to find, is well recognised by some of the best-informed among the foreign Corps Diplomatique in New Delhi. I myself attended a local meeting of the Kshattriya Mahasabha, saw something of their extensive or- ganisation and formed an impression of the slow, steady spadework which is going on in many parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.
No, I do not think that I have been misled. The strong reaction against Brahmin-Bania rule, which is among the most disquieting symptoms of present- day conditions in the South, is being echoed in the centte and West by the growing' movement which I have described. I have seen the Indian countryside at frequent intervals over the last ten years; I know that the Community Project and National Extension movements have done good, even if they have not, so far, fulfilled the hopes once founded upon them. 1 have followed carefully the successes and failures of Vinobha Bhave. Since the beginnings of my con- nection with the Indian sub-continent, my main study has been the masses and their reactions—and the rural masses at that. During the last three years, 1 have been privileged to revisit India four times; and my contacts are now the sons—and, alas! some- times the grandsons—of the men whose friendship I enjoyed for so many years before Partition.
I am sorry to inflict this anecdote upon your readers, but I should like Mr. Pocock to realise that I do possess a background which is not only of long standing, but, more important, which is. up to date. I am sorry if he thinks that 1 have treated the Com- munist danger too lightly; but ,in my view its real menace will develop only if Indian society fails to throw up an alternative to the present Government from its traditional components.—Yours faithfully,
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