SOUTH-Challenge of Instability

SOUTH INSTABILITY is likely to be India's condition of life for some time in the future. It is not a condition of life with which one has to learn to live but one which has to be changed in a specific direction. There were some radical commentators who had looked forward to instability as the best milieu for revolutionary advance. They forgot that instability is of many kinds and the specific type of instability we are now passing through has dangers and challenges and is not particularly conducive for democratic, let alone revolutionary, advance. It is instability produced by a failure to redeem radical pledges and the consequent inability to contain factions which manoeuvre in the midst of majorities without a concrete programme. This is not a process calculated to increase radicalism but one likely to produce a kind of despondency and even aimless discontent. Of course, there is a way to make this radicalism more radical; that is by organising for the implementation of the radical programmes.