THE INDEPENDENCE OF BANGLA DESH

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

You and your friends must have felt greatly worried about the outrage on democracy in the now emergent Bangla Desh (formerly East Pakistan) which had been practically a colony of Pakistan Government.

Your Harvard is a university that radiates thoughtful influence. The considered opinion of the Ripon Society, appreciating the moral excellence of the fighters of the freedom of Bangla Desh which is based on a grand democratic franchise, is expected to create an intellectual fervor in the freedom-loving America.

To stimulate the thought to an active exertion is surely the especial task of the youth force of this venerable university. A government is almost always a dull institution, and its pride in pragmatism often blurs its vision of the human values and obligations. Yet tradition counts. The America of Lincoln and Franklin, of Emerson and Whitman may assert itself, and your great country's innate radiant faith in democracy and Human Rights may well flash against the slate-colored wisdom of low-flying polities. The declaration of independence of Bangla Desh is most likely to arouse the people whose inspiring history is founded on the Declaration of American Independence. You will certainly enthuse your government to weigh between a technical sovereignty of a nation and a moral sovereignty of Man. Moreover, the President of Pakistan is not a President that you understand in your country. You do not regard a tyrant a President of people. And before the tyrant usurped power in ten years the Government of Pakistan had about ten Prime Ministers! And, finally, will America allow U.N. to go tre way of the League of Nations?

India's noble Prime Minister has taken the initiative to invite the thought of the world powers on this momentous human issue. Here I am, an old man of over seventy. with no asset but transcendental foolishness, to appeal to the majesty of America's university youths-the young masters of "student power." I have also appealed to Berkeley and Columbia youths as also Sorboune youths, remembering that there is a youth brotherhood across the world and beyond the frontiers.