Government Caught Unprepared

relations. Later, in order to placate the employers' representatives he yielded to include the word 'gherao' as illustrative of coercive tactics. The AITUC position was that, if illustrations had to be given, then coercive actions by employers too should be mentioned. However, Hathi was so concerned with the threat of a walk-out by the employers' representative that in the confusion that followed he allowed the workers' representatives to actually walk out A significant aspect of the tussle LETTER FROM WEST BENGAL THE Bengali newspapers in Calcutta carried on May 5 a half-page advertisement of the United Front Government of West Bengal. The advertisement gave a catalogue of the Government's achievements in the first six weeks ending the first day of Vaisakh in crisp language, obviously the handiwork of the Information Minister, Somnath Lahiri (Right Communist), Lahiri, it may be mentioned, is one of the finest journalistic craftsmen produced by the communist movement in India, His reporting of the Bengal famine of 1943. "Queues of Death", could easily rank as a piece of literature. Clippings of his editorials in the communist daily "Swadhinata" like those on the RIN Revolt, 'rakter dak' (Call from Blood), and Gandhi- ji's assassination, 'shok noy, krodh' (Wrath, Not Mourning), used to adorn the walls of many a Bengali home in those turbulent but historic days. He, it seems, had brought to bear on the advertisement quite a good bit of his skill The claims were not exaggerated. In fact, if the fortnight following the advertisement's reference period were taken into consideration, a few notable additions could easily be made to/the list. The concluding paragraph, however, deserves to be quoted for its modesty and the new level of rapport it seeks to estab. lifch between the rulers and the ruled; "The Government is new. Its administrative experience is limited, Hence there may be in the SLC was that, of the employers' representatives, the representative of the All-India Manufacturers' Organisation (AIMO), which is one of the three employers' organisations, openly dissociated himself from the demand to make an issue of gheraos, and on the side of the workers, the Indian National Trade Union Congress agreed specifically to condemn gheraos because it did not want its rival, the AITUC, to get away with it all at the meeting.