| Description | Interview with Jai Tireth Ram, a student in Madras. He discusses the extent of political consciousness amongst the young people he knows, and does not think that many of them have radical political views. He thinks that most people are only concerned with not being able to get a job, but that they do not think of the reasons why. He discusses becoming politically aware when he began to notice higher levels of unemployment amongst engineers, and discusses the ways that government policy is affecting unemployment. He goes on to talk about political activity at his college and the need for dynamic change. He discusses some of the political literature he has read, his opinions about the Indian Civil Service and its association with British rule, his views about the political future in India, which he thinks will be chaotic. He no longer thinks there will be a civil war between the Hindi speaking state and the southern states, but thinks that the country will never be politically united. He has sympathy with the needs of the peasants for land reform and their attempts to occupy land because they would not succeed by any other means, and attempts to explain his own political position and social background in the propertied, middle classes. He thinks that radical change is not possible through peaceful methods, and discusses his disillusionment with the concept of peaceful change. He goes on to discuss his belief that the only party that can effect social change is Congress, the personality of Indira Gandhi, and his position on the political parties that support violence in political progress such as the Communist Party of India and the Communist Party Marxist (tracks 1-9).
Interview with Miss Bharati. She discusses beginning to write English poetry, her reasons for writing in English, her birth in West Bengal, now part of Pakistan, and being brought up and educated at missionary school in Calcutta. She remembers learning English fairy stories at school and discusses how she related to the stories and the illustrations in the English books she read (tracks 10-11).
Total: 28.33 mins
Dubber's reference number: PLA KF549C0131480 |