Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe Niall Ferguson's Analysis of the COVID 19 Pandemic

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Niall Ferguson is provocative, prolific and perspicacious. Provocative because this book taken on the now popular ideologies of "systemic racism", "global justice" and "climate change". Unlike the journalists who find easy explanations in politics and personalities, the historian necessarily has to take a more nuanced position. As he has shown, Trump was not more responsible for the COVID pandemic than Bill Clinton was for the Rwandan Genocide or the War in the Balkans. He is a prolific writer as he and his team chum out books almost at an industrial rate and get it published to catch the latest headlines. And he is perspicacious as he has shown the strong lines of continuity between the present Pandemic and those in the past starting from the earliest ones known from historical sources and he finds a pattern. Governmental interventions in disasters are vital towards finding a solution, but the middle bureaucracy  can subvert the best laid plans of Presidents and Prime Ministers.

Those who come to this book with a background in History, as I do, will find this book rather inadequate. Many of the arguments were already made several decades back by William McNeil in his Plagues and People. And Of course, Alfred J Crossby in his Columbian Exchange has traversed this territory of pathogens and their impact on History. However the book is the first serious attempt at looking at the Global History of a Pandemic that is still reaping its macabre harvest the world over. While Ferguson rightly states that China was responsible for the Pandemic he avoids the question: Did China unleash a bio logical weapon against an unsuspecting world? Given the response to the outbreak in Wuhan, this question has a great deal of salience. Why did China suppress the human to human transmission and delay the confirmation of the deadly outbreak until it had spread to nearly 67 countries. The WHO which played an effective role under Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Prime Minister of Norway, was rendered ineffective, indeed an accomplice in shielding China from international scrutiny. Dr Tederos was quite unconcerned about the responsibilities WHO had towards the World.

Niall Ferguson has provided a tour de force through all the major Epidemics and Disasters in History and he zeroes in on the 1918-19 Global Influenza Epidemic. This Pandemic which cost nearly 40 million lives was also a Corona virus which was effectively dealt with by a combination of medical intervention and sanitation without the use of Lockdown as strategy. The US Government under President Trump went in for total lockdown which was effective in bringing down infection rates but tanked both the economy and the political future of Donald Trump. 

An interesting feature of the book is the critique of the public health policies and measures adopted b different Governments. In UK the first instinct of Neil Ferguson (not to be confused with the author of this book) advocated herd immunity. Allow the virus a free run and hope that at the end of the dance people will be immune. From this ridiculous policy the team, New and Emerging Respiratory Threats Advisory Group  (NERVTAG). jumped to an alarming and obviously unrealistic daily rate of virus transmission. Like Generals fighting the last war, epidemiologists are busy preparing for the last Great Pandemic. The course of the pandemic has defied all theories, statistical extrapolations and models deployed by experts. 

Added to the noise of the experts was the cacophony in the Popular Press. Captive of the big Corporations like Google, Amazon, Twitter and FaceBook the Press took a negative stance e towards political  leaders of Democratic countries. For example FB prevented the use of its platform for contact tracing thereby helping to spread rather than contain the Pandemic. And mega tech companies, reluctant to alienate China as its Market was huge, branded Trump's China travel ban "racist" though they knew that the disease had traveled from Wuhan, China. Niall Ferguson rightly condemns the 'morality play" quality of COVID 19 reportage as though popular political leaders were responsible for the disease. Quoting from Washington Post, the author has demonstrated that the paper consistently downplayed the threat posed by the disease and  certainly shied away from asking searching questions about the role of China. Of course this has nothing to do with the fact that Jeff Bezos is both the owner of Amazon and Washington Post. And China is a huge market. In a happy eloquent phrase which will resonate with those who cherish human freedom, Ferguson writes, "the East India Companies of the internet have plundered enough data; they have caused enough famines of truth; and plagues of the mind". 

This is a book which is topical and timed to sell as the flavor of the season is COVID.

The COVID 19 Pandemic in India: The Second Wave and How India is Responding

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The Second Wave is hitting India very hard and no respite is yet in sight. The main factor behind the exponential rise in the cases is the mutant varieties, the Canadian and the UK, mutants brought in by those attending the Farmer's protests on the borders of Delhi. The first cases were identified in Delhi and now has spread. The mutants seem to be more deadly than the original virus itself and India has to thank the people who participated in the protests against the Farm Laws. All the Newspapers particularly the woke English Press supported the Agitation and the mass gathering incubated the mutants into a  critical mass for widespread dissemination. Since March 2021 there has been a steady rise in the caseload and though white epidemiologists have predicted Apocalyptic numbers, nothing nearing that is likely to happen. The Government was distracted as the Framer's Agitation so close to Delhi and a series of state elections resulted in the effective strategy of vaccinating the Population started floundering. As I said the Second wave is hitting hard. 

The Government of India relied on the vaccination programme in order to stanch the disease. And that was not to be. India has developed two vaccines and both, particularly COVISHIELD has been very effective and lab studies show that even the mutants are effectively neutralized by this vaccine. And COVAXIN is the other. As part of its humanitarian effort India exported 20 million doses all over the world and USA Germany and UK have been far less generous. Vaccine Maitreyi as the programme was called was effective and just then disaster struck.

Joe Biden and his right arm Kamala Harris struck a decisive blow. As  a historian I cannot endorse conspiracy theories or Deep State compulsion behind the Woke Politics in USA. The Indian journalists like Guha, Dutt Gupta and others friendly with the  Congress Party started systematically derailing the Government strategy by raising imaginary efficiency  questions about the COVISHIELD and started rooting for the Pfizer drug. The Pfizer unlike Astra Zenneca is effective and far less susceptible to blood clotting. But costing around $500 (US) this vaccine would have been a financial disaster. However the Opposition and the Press started lobbying very strongly and stridently for this vaccine. The tests have shown that COVISHIELD is just as efficacious and the Pfizer. Joe Biden in a body blow struck at the very heart of India's strategy.

Using the Defense Production Act first invoked by President Trump, Joe Biden and his right arm Harris stopped the export of the critical component for the manufacture of the drug and  prevented NOVAX from exporting the component. This delay created a window that allowed the mutant virus infect the population that had not been vaccinated and at least a few thousand deaths are the result of this policy. USA has enough vials of vaccine hoarded to such an extent that its entire population can be vaccinated a few hundred times and yet Biden and Harris decided to embargo the critical component. If Biden and Harris talk of Human Rights, International Leadership, Humanitarian Intervention etc, it is certain that such woke garbage will be received with sniggering contempt. In fact we are still not sure if Biden is behind this policy or his handlers who are nameless faceless people hiding behind the façade of an election in which Biden and Harris were "declared" elected. Anyway the Embargo and the relentless Propaganda unleashed by a section of the Press against what was an effective strategy until the end of March 2021.

Is recovery in sight? The numbers are staggering. The Government has been able to reconfigure the supply chain as both France and Russia have stepped in. Oxygen which was in demand is being produced in newly fabricated plants and the recovery rate is increasing steadily. This disaster is entirely the result of American callousness and we have a new phenomenon: Death by changes or disruption in the supply chain. India will not forget this hard earned lesson.

National Herald Frauds: An Expose

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

National Herald Frauds

Author Shree Iyer

California USA, Jan 2021

The book authored by Shree Iyer, an engineer turned

entrepreneur, makes  an interesting read but it is cast not as a narrative account of the Scandal but rather as a series of short pithy reports on the National Herald Frauds (in plural). This is a case brought out by the BJP MP and a leading light of the political firmament of India, Dr Subramanian Swamy.http://creative.sulekha.com/subramanian-swamy-and-indian-politics-why-india-needs-a-ruthless-hunter_553763_blog. Nearly 10 years back we have drawn attention to the great work done by Dr Swamy in his ruthless hunt against Crime and Corruption in the field of Indian politics. He exposed the 2G Scandal which involved the leading figures in the Dynastic Fascist DMK Party and he followed it with the expose on the National Herald Frauds. The Congress interim President her son and several of her Congress colleagues have been enlarged on bail for serious fraud as a consequence of Dr Swamy's relentless quest for truth. It is unfortunate that the case is not getting the attention it deserves and prosecution has virtually stalled, perhaps at the behest of the Congress itself.

What are the National Herald Frauds? The Associated Journals of India was launched by Jawaharlal Nehru, the second Prime Minister of India, in 1938 as a public limited Company to run the propaganda arm of the Congress Party, the National Herald. Interestingly, the shareholders of the public limited Company were not given any opportunity of being consulted over the transfer of the properties of the Associated Journals of India to a new organization which was floated in 2012 called Young Indian. Over the many years of Congress rule, the Associated Journals of India had acquired several tracts of prime real estate in almost all the major urban centers of India, including Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Chandigarh. An interesting feature of the transaction lay in the fact that the directors of the Associated Journals of India were almost identical with the dominant controlling interests of the Young Indian. The total worth of the properties acquired by the Associated Journals of India was 2000 crores and all these extensive valuable real estate was now transferred to the Young Indian, the new shell company created to transfer  the property. 

The cartoon illustrated on the left provides an insight into the mechanics of this fraud. The same set of persons operating in their capacity as directors or shareholders of the AJI transferred the properties belonging to the National Herald holding Company to the shell company created to receive the properties on behalf of the Young Indian and interestingly enough both were identical. In other  words a set of public servants had colluded to defraud a public limited Company of its property. The debts of the Associated Journals of India were taken over by the Young Indian for mere 90 crores.

Dr Subramanian Swamy the relentless Crusader against Corruption and Dynastic Fascism filed a private complaint against Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and several other worthies of the Congress Party in the High Court of Delhi in February 2013.  The charges against these worthies included cheating and criminal conspiracy to grab 2000 crores of land and assets. When the Mother-Son duo were asked to appear before the Court of Law the entire Congress Party went into convulsions. The Party tried all kinds of underhand measures and strategies to have the case either stayed or thrown out. But the relentless Dr Swamy has prevailed so far. The Income Tax Department of the Ministry of Finance in a 105 page document has shown that the entire transaction was indeed a sham. Attempts to portray the prosecution in the National Herald Scam as political vendetta has drawn a blank even from the Dynastic Fascist friendly English Press which includes the Hindu, Times of India and Hindustan Times. And the Central Government under the Prime Minister the Hon ble Narendra Modi has kept itself out of the limelight so as to deflect the charge of vendetta.

The Case is now in the courts and legal opinion is unanimous that it will end in convictions. But does that mean the end of political corruption in India. Perhaps not. But India needs a ruthless honest hunter like Dr Swamy to make its politicians understand that the Law Governs the Country and not Outlaws.

I like this book in spite of its unusual format,

The Untold Story of Hicky's Bengal Gazette: Scandal, Blackmail and Corruption in Old Calcutta

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

The Untold Story of India's First Newspaper

Andrew Otis

Madras: Westland Publications Private Ltd, 2018.

The History of the print media is an exiting field of research thanks to the pioneering works of Roger Chartier and Robert Darnton. Like Elizabeth Eisenstein who emphasized the revolutionary character of print as a medium that brought about a fundamental transformation  in society, both the historians mentioned studied the impact of print by analyzing the social groups which patronized the mass produced chap books, almanacs, and other uses of print. Darnton set his eyes on the great project of the eighteenth century, the publication of Diderot's Encyclopedia. Andrew Otis has a more humble quarry. He has studied the Bengal Gazette, a Newspaper which was started by James Augustus Hicky in Calcutta in 1780. The book is an exploration of the trials and tribulations faced by Hicky as he took on the powerful Governor of Bengal, Warren Hastings, 

Printing began in India in the tiny coastal village of Tranquebar in 1714  when Prussian missionaries from Halle established a printing press as support to carry out their evangelical activities. The troubles that Hicky faced in Calcutta stemmed from one Protestant missionary from Tranquebar who set up shop in Cuddalore and then moved to Calcutta, Johann Zacharias Kiernander who was seconded to India by the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge according to Hicky was more interested in making money and he accused him of systematically defrauding the Society. Not content with his broadsides against the missionary, Hicky carried out a campaign against Warren Hastings accusing him of corruption and using the Chief Justice of the Sadr Adalat Eliah Impey as his accomplice, in extortion, corruption in Military Contracts and plain thuggery that will perhaps shame even an Indian politician today. Hicky was particularly savage in his attacks on Hasting regarding his war against the Rohillas which was waged for the sole purpose of seizing the wealth of the "Begums of Oudh", the grand dames of Awadh. Hicky compared Warren Hastings with Clive, his predecessor and obviously even Warren Hastings was not amused.

Both Kiermnader and Hastings brought charges of libel against Hicky and in spite of the Jury finding Hicky not guilty of most of the serious charges, he was sent to prison, making him the first martyr for the Independence of the Press. The four years that he spent in Jail weakened his health, drained his resources and impoverished his family. in 1799 Hicky died on his way to China and was buried at sea, off the coast of Malacca.

The book is written in a highly readable style and there is no attempt at painting heroes and villains and this is welcome. Warren Hastings was recalled as the news of his egregious corruption reached the House of Commons and the main articles of impeachment wer drawn up by Edmund Burke on the basis of Hicky's scathing attacks: the illegal execution of Nanda Coomar, the Poolbandy Army Contracts, the Affair of the Begums of Awadh being the most noteworthy. After a trial that lasted nearly 8 long years, and 5 changes in the British Government, Wrren Hastings was acquitted.

As a contribution to the history of the East India Company, the book is not of any importance. However, the life of Hicky as he took on the powerful officers of the East India Company is of great importance. In a foreign land, Hicky tried in vain as it turned out in his lifetime, to establish the Freedom of the Press. He refused to divulge the names of his sources, a strategy he could have used to deflect the charges of libel on to his informants. And for this adherence to principle we need to remember Hicky. The records of his trial by sheer happenstance have survived and I am sure that it will attract greater attention. 

Narendra Modi in Pondicherry: A New Political Formation emerges

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Narendra Modi, the Prime Minister of India, arrived in Pondicherry on a ne day visit. He was welcomed by the newly appointed Lt Governor Dr Tamilissai, who was once the President of Tamil Nadu BJP and now the Governor of Telengana. Addressing the public soon after he had inaugurated a slew of developmental projects, the Prime Minister lit into the dynastic politics and family oriented High Command culture of the Congress Party and its leadership in Pondicherry. He inaugurated a Blood Bank at JIPMER and laid the foundation of the Karaikal Centre of JIPMER, he announced the development of Minor Ports in Pndicherry under the Sagarmala Scheme and the inauguration of the IV laning of the Sattanthapuram to Nagapattinam Section of NH 32. And the most important of all the dedication of the rebuilt Hotel Marie to the Nation.

Narendra Modi did not mince words. He drew attention to the fact that a leader who to his own leader is not worth electing. This was in reference to the infamous video that went viral in which a woman who complained to Rahul Gandgi when he visited Pondicherry last week, saying that Narayanaswmy and his Government did not extend any help to those affected in the recent rains. This was conveyed to Rahul as though the woman was complimenting the Government for the splendid work done. Narayanaswamy like every petty courtier sought to take advantage of the ignorance of the languages of communication of both Rahuk Gandhi and the poor  woman. The Prime Minister also reminded the people of the slipper lifting episode in which Narayanaswamy picked up the slippers of Rahul Gandhi thereby demeaning himself and thus demonstrating his servility to the Crown Prince. Apart from these the Prime Minister also listed the several lapses on the part of the Narayanaswamy Government including the long delayed Panchayat Polls.

The BJP is making an all out effort to win Pondicherry. It is a fact that the Government of Pondicherry was absolutely inept partly because of the in ability of the Chief Minister to get along with Dr Kiran Bedi, the Lt Governor appointed by the Centre. He resorted to agitation against Dr Kiran Bedi twice but did not succeed in making any headway against the Lt Governor. Even on the contentious issue of the 3 nominated MLAs he lost as the Supreme Court held that the 3 MLAs had the same rights and privileges as any elected member. In fact over the four years he had been in power, Narayanaswamy took several of his disagreements with DR Bedi to Court and did not get relief in even a single case.  The frustration within the Congress became acute and several MLAs including the second in command, Shri Namasivayam resigned from the Party. And Narayanawsamy Government fell as it was reduced to a minority.  

What about the up coming Polls. There are 30 seats in all. The BJP will certainly win a few seats around 5 to 6 and along with the AIADMK and the NR Congress the NDA political Formation will end up with around 17 to 18 seats.  The importance of Pondicherry to the BJP is purely symbolic. It wants to post a credible  electoral performance ina Tamil speaking area. And in this the BJP will succeed.

K R Malkani's Political Mysteries A Bird's Eye View of the Scandals of Mdern India

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Political Mysteries

K R Malkani

Ocean Books Pvt Ltd

New Delhi

K R Malkani remains to my mind an unforgetable character. I got to know him well when he was the Lt. Governor of Pondicherry and found interacting with him a learning experience. He was a man of endowed with great intellectual capacity and a steel fortified integrity. I knew him well over the course of his stay in Pondicherry as the Lt Governor and he has left a mark here. He was accessible and did not let prtocol come in the way while helping commn people. He was the editor of Organizer for several years and while in Office he  publishe India First, and I cherish the autographed copy of the book he presented me. As he is not amongst us any more I pay respect to his memory. I will always remember Shri K R Malkani. 

The book under review is an interesting selection from some of the lead articles he wrote for the publications he edited. As a journalist, Shri Malkani was unlike the sorry breed today that brandishes fake Harvard credentials, deeply committed to the rigorous pursuit of inconvenient truths. He was well read and could place a seemingly disparate assemblege of facts in a convincing well researched narrative. Most of the pieces collected in this small volume deal with issues that raised considerable interest in its day and though question lingered on, the politisised Media did not pursue truth to its quarry. Malkani was different. He raised tricky questions and sought to answer them without mincing words. Pretty euphemisms were not for him. He was a founding member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh along with Atal Behari Vajpayee, Advani and Balraj Madok. And he remained true to his convictions until the very end. Except  for a term as a Rajya sabha member and one year as Lt Governor of pondicherry, Malkani did not hold any public office. And he did not let the trappings of high office distory either his vision or his personality. When he passed away, Pondicherry mourned as though it had lost its own.

State sponsored historians generally avoid raising twi issue: One did Nehru and his Congress Party fall into the trap of the British as executed by Mountbatten rush headlong towards Partition without thinking of altenatives. By bringing forward the date of Independence from August 1948 to August 1947 Nehru created conditions that led to an ill prepared and badly executed plan of Partition and all its horrors can be placed at the feet of this man. Malkani brings out his fact along with the shabby manner in which Nehru dealt with Subash Cahndra Bose. While he goes along with the generally accepted theory of the Air Crash in Taiwan killing Bose, Malkani sees a more direct hand of the then Government. Was Bose sacrificed in order to save the Japanese Emperor from facing charges related to Japan's war time atrocities in South East Asia. The non serious Commissions of Inquiry appointed b successive Congress regimes shows lack of interest, ifv not complicity. The second issue pertains to the series of crimes that have taken place in India during successive Congress regimes for which answers are not forthcoming. Though he does not use the term, kleptocracy, sums up the Congress approach to politics and the fig leaf of fake secularism is bandied about as alibi.

As a major and senior leader of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, Malkani is obviously interested in the mystery surrounding the murers f Shyama Prasad Mukerjee and Deen Dayal Upadhya. It is obvious from the sequence of events that Shyama Prasad Mukerjee was treated with particular callousness that resulted in his death. A diabetic if deprived of insulin for 40 days is bound to die and so Nwhru should have intervened and saved his life. As in the case of Bose, perhaps Gandhi as well, Nehru had Sheikh Abdullah do the dirty deed for him. As fr Deen Dayal it was certainly a case of planned assasination at Mughalsarai Junction and Indira Gandhi did not even try hanging a fig leaf over this hrrible crime. I would like to add one more which Malkani has nt discussed. The brutal assasination of L N Mishra at Samastipur Railway Station. A few Anand Margis were arrested. But it is now clear that higher ups in the congress Party were interested in seeing the end of L N Mishra whose role in the State Trading Corpration Scandal was unraveling.

Malkani is also very critical of the role played by Indira Gandhi and the Congress is extending support to Bhindrenwale and his Khalistani movement, The cynical calculation behind this destructive policy was the splitting of the Akali vote. Prakash Singh Badal had succeeded in winning a clear majority for the Akalis with the support of the BJ sangh. And Zail Singh and Indira decided n this dangerus game. The fall out of Indira's self destructive policies was of course her own death, the terrible Massacre of Sikhs organized and perpetrated by the Congress Party, the downing of KNISHKA, the Air India Flight from Canada'.

The book is well written and must be read by anyone interested in contemporary politics. The dark deeds of the rulers must be exposed an Malkani has done just that.

The Politics of Murder, Violence and Terror: The Red Fascists and their record of violence in Kannur

A look at the world of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and books

Kerala has earned for itself an unenviable reputations. Lazy "left Intellectuals" have labored to fabricate an image of Kerala as a progressve, socially inclusive and vibrant state. In reality the picture is vastly different. Recent events such as the fire bombing of the pregnant elephant and the inability of the Pinrayi regime to arrest the ciminals reponsible has dented the caefully cultivated image and more recently, the Gold Smuggling case in which Pinrayi's close aides are said to be involved as further dented the already sagging image. The astonishing level of political violence is the elephant i the room which the ideologically charged lazy left intelletuals who write for Frontline and EPW are reluctant to even admit. Fortunately one of them has come out with a book n this very theme. Redrocity or Left Atrocity is hardly a new phenomenon and those who are familiar with the record of Lenin, Stalin, their ne tim ally Hitler, Mao or Pol Pot will admit that violence is the only language that the Left knows and deploys for political advantage. India has experienced Redrocity in West Bengal n the Naxalite Belt and Kannur in Kerala has become a byword, a metaphor for violence as grand political spectacle.

N P Ullekh, the author, is the son of P Gopalan, a Marxist leader from the very heartland of political killing, th badlands of Kannur. Though he writes with deep sympathy for the marxists, he is honest enough to document in unrelenting detail the gyre of violence in Kannur. Even as I write this, the morning newspaper carried yet another news report relating to yet another victim of the Marxists' quest for total political domination over Kannur. What is truly disturbing is the nexus between the marxists and Muslim gangs operating under various Jihadi banners. Marxists to maintain their "secular" image outsource murder to muslims groups who can be tapped for undertaking such crimes partly motivated by ideological considerations and partly for money. Attacks on RSS workers or BJP workers by DYFI or SFI thugs is a routine affair in Kannur and what is particularly interesting is that such events have been taking palce since 1969. The brutal murder of Shri Vadikkal Ramakrishnan on April 28, 1969 inaugurated a cycle of violence and the state is yet to be free of its aftermath.

The head of the marxist regime currently in place in Kerala, Pinrayi Vijayan was one of the accused in the murder and as in the case of the murder of Sisiter Abhaya, the trial ended up acquitting all the nine accused inculding Vijayan on the ground of iadequate evidence. Interestingly Stephy and her partner in crime were also given the benefit of doubt on the same grounds in two earlier trials. As attempt at reopening this case has not succeeded and all papers relating to the murder in 1969 have conveniently disappeared. Ullekh uses a nice euphemism and calls Vijayan's brand of politics "muscular" when the more appropriate term would undoubtdly be Fascist.

Like Stalin, Pol Pot and Mao the commisars of Kannur too beleive that Marx' theory of "class struggle" demands an unswerving adherence to murder and mayhem. Kodeyari Balakrishan another of the muscular faces of Red Fascism in Kannur had more than once spoken of the ease with which political opponents were eliminated  in Kerala. And all these self confessed crimes have gone unpunished. The author has cited several cases in which marxists leaders justified the killing of political workers. Leaders like Sashi quoted by the author seem to have gangs of killes whom they despatched to kill or threaten political opponents. One reason for the crude resort to violence is the fact that marxists seem to be on the whole undereducated and eductional institutions in Kerala are only boot camps for marxist cadres. As a teacher in a central university, I can say that youth are easily incited and the lack of a critical sense to disaggregate fact from propaganda is a part of the problem and marxists find it convenient to have an army of slogan shouting zombies to further their political ends.

The author has advanced an interesting theory to account for the unrelenting violence in Kannur.  The area with a large Chekavar preesence has just the right social mileu for caste tension, a glimpse of which can be caught in the bardic compositions of Northrn Kerala. The Chekavars were armed muscl men of the Nairs who lorded over the area prior to the raids of Tipu Sultan in the eighteenth century, when large scae dispossession of landed property took place. The kudippakka (vendetta) songs extolling cultivated vengence over several generations keep the memories of old conflicts fresh in the collective memory and plitical activists in the form of "peope's theatre" are at hand to stir up a heady brew of class conflict and vengeful landlords from the thin wisps of folk legends. And post colonial "historians" are now at hand to give academic legitimacy to such an idelogically mariated version of the past. Marxist historians as the author points out were encouraged by the congress as a tacit bagain for political support. Such opportunism is of course secular politics.

The author while accpeting the fact that the Maxist faction and its leaders like Vijayan, Raghavan and Govindan Master are votaries of violence in defence of the Kannur fiefdom, argues that it was the Cngress that began the cycle of violence and if that is so there is a lesson to be learnt here. Violence is a sure sign that the cadre is unsure of its moorings and it is therefore not surprising that the congress is losing ground as the recent local elections showed. The same fate awits the Red Fascists too. The marxist faction is particularly prone to gratuitous violence and the auhor has more than proved this point.

Having read this book, I can say that it is an honest attempt at explaining the Redrocity called Kannur. Te slaying of Jayakrishnann Master, a school teacher, in front of a class room of young students shows how despicable the politics of the marxists has become.