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In a Paris hotel one sunny morning in 1926, a serious-minded young Hindu aristocrat took upon himself a delicate task. Resolutely he squared his slim shoulders and summoned out onto the balcony his younger sister, a lively 19-year-old who, under his watchful eye, was getting her first taste of life in Europe. "Darling," he began, "you go out alone with a lot of young men. That is as it should be, but I hope you know all about everything—er, you know, er—I suppose every girl must know, dash it all."
Politely, but in some confusion, the young man's sister informed him that she had no idea what he was talking about. "But don't you understand," he persisted, "that when a girl goes out with a boy alone anything might happen?"
"What could happen?" asked the girl.
At this the young man lost his temper. "You are exceedingly stupid," he snapped. "If you don't know what I mean, well, let us leave it at that and trust to God that nothing happens."
Compulsive Adviser. In the 30 years since that day in Paris, nothing has shaken Jawaharlal Nehru's profound conviction that it is up to him to set people straight on the facts of life. Incurable victim of what he himself recognizes as a compulsion to give advice, India's Prime Minister indefatigably ladles out instruction to family, friends, his 382 million countrymen and the world at large.
In the past decade entire nations have come to know the puzzlement and irritation that Nehru's sister Krishna described in a Ladies' Home Journal article last year. Nonetheless, in much of the world, anything that Nehru has to say is listened to with respect and attention. This is partly because Jawaharlal Nehru, whatever his faults, is an impressive man and can be a charming one, but it is primarily because he speaks in the name of an otherwise largely silent segment of mankind—one-seventh of the human race.
The Humane Alternative. Not long ago U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas predicted that "the Big Six of the last half of the 20th century" would be Russia, China, Japan, Germany, the U.S.—and India. Whether or not Douglas' prophecy is borne out, India is already one of the world's pivotal powers, important less for demonstrated strength or wisdom or stability than as a bellwether, however uncertain of place and leadership, for the rest of Asia.
In Asia today there are 13 new nations, with a population of 635 million, which have won their independence during and since World War II.* Against heavy odds they are desperately intent on gaining that other fundamental element of modern power—an up-to-date industrial economy. Obsessed by the desire to change from their primitive agricultural present, Asians are powerfully attracted by the example of the U.S.S.R., which since 1917 has transformed itself from a nation of peasants into the world's second-greatest industrial power. The price the U.S.S.R. paid—total suppression of human liberties and the sacrifice of two generations of Russians—does not appall many Asians as much as it does Westerners.