What’s In A Name?

Mr. McCormick, businessman from Wichita, recently completed a trip around the world. This article records some impressions of India.

 
As you visit India, you soon be­come cognizant of the fact that Nehru is a virtual dictator. You read from Nehru’s pen of his fascination for communism as the only “scientific” plan of living known to him. He does not believe in the sanctity of property though history has proven over and over that whenever a government takes from a man his well-earned prop­erty, it also takes away his free­dom.

If you are fortunate, as I was, your traveling companion might be a former ruler of a large area in India, an intimate friend of the Queen of England and of Nehru himself. This man might tell you how he had questioned Nehru about allowing the Communist party to exist openly in India. (One state today is managed by the communists, by the precarious margin of one vote.) Nehru re­plied to the effect that communism is an emotion sweeping the world and that it would be poor politics to try to exclude it from India by force. He would hope to discredit communism by devising a more “scientific” plan for social living.

Nehru was highly successful as the amalgamator of India. But, as the dictator of India, his is a hand of putty. Politicians in high places have been woefully dishonest, but few are punished or even dis­missed. Pay-offs are rampant. A person has no assurance that a parcel would be delivered safely through the mail. The tiger skin you wish tanned must be taken personally to the tanner in a dis­tant town. A small gift to be sent to a friend is first machine Stitched in a burlap bag, then a row of hand overcasting around the bag, after which the merchant wax-seals the corners — all to discourage theft of the contents. The only phrase to describe such a situation is dis­honest government.

You wish there were some way to explain to Nehru and his sup­porters that it doesn’t necessarily discredit communism to practice all of its evils under some “more scientific” label. You can steal the communism machine and paint it a different color. But, strip off the paint, and it is the same machine, built to direct the energies of all men by force.