At the outset I indicate my limitations as reviewer of this latest collection of Bakhtin’s work to be translated into English. I have no Russian, nor most of the languages which Bakhtin knew so well and from which he drew copiously to ill¬ustrate his arguments. Also I am not well acquainted with several of the disciplines with which his wide and deep thinking engaged.
So much has been written and said about the post-Independence economic develop- ment of India, that yet another narration of the Indian experience demands some
justification.
The ice free Indian Ocean on which 3 continents abut occupies approximately 28 millions square miles which is l/5th of the world sea area and cradles the peri¬pheries of Africa and the Orient in two separate geo-political horse-shoes in which l/4th of the world’s population live and operate at different levels of political consciousness ranging from military dictatorships and monarchies to commu¬nism, tribalism, fundamentalism, and the world’s largest practising democracy.
One would certainly want to forget the memories of the three days when the nation was cantilevered on a slope. But time, this time, has not played its usual lenitive role and healed old wounds. The victims of the massacre following Mrs. Gandhi’s death may have now reconciled themselves to not seeing a loved face, or hearing a familiar voice, or feeling that reassuring presence but there is no numb¬ness there; instead there is mounting anger and humiliation.
The book is a collection of essays evolved during 1978-84 and carries a Foreword by Roger Garaudy.
Garaudy says science has been separated from wisdom and means have become independent of concern for the ends. There has been hypertrophy in the use of reason in relation to cause and effect, and atrophy in its use ‘from ends to ends, from intermediate ends to higher ends’ which gave direction to life.
Bonnie C. Wade is Associate Professor of Music at the University of California at Berkeley. She is also a member of the Council of the American Musicology Society. She is the author of several monographs and articles on Indian Music.