The latest device to run down criticism is criticism. The formula is that if you criticize a critic on the patriotism plank, you can get an easy walk over. Mr Nixon tried this first in the United States, when Mr. Kennedy said American prestige in the world was low; anti-American was the adjective Mr Nixon and fellow Republicans used, thereafter, to refer to Mr. Kennedy. Now Shri Morarji Desai has criticized all those who criticise the Government of India. Unpatriotic, he says in effect, is the tendency to run down the five-year plans of the Government. The inference is that if it is the Government that has sponsored a certain thing, the thing must be above reproach. In the higher realms of welfare, we will subscribe automatically to the kind of view expressed by Shri Moraji Desai. Unfortunately, more than half the citizens of the United States were too low down on earth to understand the higher concepts of Mr.Nixon! We hope Indians being morally superior to other races, will not be so and that Shri Desai will find himself fully vindicated by the people.
22nd November, 1960.
