Articles by Nigel Crook

Insights from Leprosy Control in Bombay Radhika Ramasubban Nigel Crook Bhanwar Singh Pending the emergence of sustained collective efforts which would herald a health transition in the metropolitan, cities of the developing countries, attention is inevitably drawn to manoeuvres at the margins of the existing policies and processes. Recent programmes in Bombay indicate the emergence of a perspective in public health polity which takes it beyond mortality control measures.

This paper presents evidence on the 'duality' of female employment

Mortality Toll of Cities Emerging Patterns of Disease in Bombay Radhika Ramasubban Nigel Crook Concern with the environmental conditions of disease control has until recently focused on water and food- borne diseases, for the diarrhoeal diseases have been major killers, especially of young children, both in rural and urban areas. Without disputing this approach, this article seeks to redress the balance of concern, and to caution against a too generalised interpretation of emerging trends. For in some of the large and growing cities at least, the mortality pendulum seems to be swinging away from intestinal towards respiratory diseases; however, the causes of this change are not as clear-cut as the current interest in air pollution might suggest.

september 15, 1979 leadership from working class struggles. While speaking of the need for Communists" to identify with the poor, he held up the example of Gandhi: " .. he in his life style identified himself with the poor peasant and thereby made him feel that he was one with him, instilled into him the courage to stand up against the foreign rule." Is this assessment borne out by facts? When the poor really stood up against foreign rule, Gandhi held him back, as happened in Chauri Chaura. As for his life-style, it was more of a receptive facade than a genuine mark of identification with the poor. Perhaps the late Sarojini Naidu was more clearsighted in her assessment of Gandhi's life style when she said many years ago: "The world does not know how much we have to spend to keep Gandhiji oner", the most interesting part of the present book is the last chapter entitled 'Memoir of an Indian Communist' which is actually a republication of an interview with K Damodaran which appeared first in the New Left Review, No 93, September-October 1975. Unlike many Indian Communist intellectuals, Damodaran was frank and bold enough to evaluate the entire past of both the Indian and international Communist movements and raise pertinent questions. He spoke in the interview of his differences with the Chinese and Soviet comrades during 1962, his growing disenchantment with the Soviet Communist party, and creeping doubts about electoral victories in India. Thus, Damodaran on Trotsky: 'l don't believe in the Stalinist falsification of history in which Trotsky was depicted as an im- a list spy and a fascist agent... I mime Trotsky, Bukharin, Rosa Luxemburg, Gramsci, Lukacs and other Marxists should seriously be studied and critically evaluated by all Communists. Marxism will be poorer if we eliminate them from the history of the world communist movement,' Or, when the interviewer asked him about the 'necessity of helping to stimulate and create organs of popular power of a Soviet type which could organise the masses independently of the bourgeois state and could be utilised to challenge the state when the need arose", Damodaran admitted: "These problems you mention are very important and vital ones, but I am sorry to say that they did not enter into the dicussions which took place [within the CPI], One of the results of Stalinism has been precisely that the key importance of organising the masses through their own organs of power, such as Soviets, has disappeared".