NEW DELHI: The semi-fictional English novel, The American: A Middle Western, by the great American literateur and television writer Howard Melvin Fast (1914 to 2003), was banned by the United States administration despite its tall claims of being the strongest democracy in the entire world and champion of freedom of expression. The novel is said to be based on a true account of the life of a former Governor of one of its states whose ancestors had immigrated from a European country by the sea route and dared to contest the US Presidential Elections.

The novel was translated in Hindi by late renowned Indian historian Dr. Prof.Lal Bahadur Varma at the beginning of this Millenium when the Internet made the banning of books in any geographies virtually redundant. Dr Varma passed away in a Dehradun hospital early Monday morning due to heart stroke following complications in Kidney functioning apparently caused by the COVID-19 infection.

The novel's Hindi translation was published about a decade ago by the Haryana Sahitya Akademi, at a time when India was still India i.e Bharat and had not sought to be turned into the 'New India ' that the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi and neither did Haryana have Modi's party Bhartiya Janata Party ( BJP) rule in the history of Independent India.

The late historian's son Satyam Varma had asked me to procure a copy of the banned novel for translation in India in Hindi as due to its banning by the US Administration. The ban on the book was so strict that no one could get hold of a copy, it couldn't be done even by Amrit Ray, son of the great Premchant,  of the most celebrated writers of the Indian subcontinent. Ray had translated many novels of Howard Fast, including 'Spartkus' and 'How the Steel was tempered.' I was lucky enough to have got hold of a copy (although in a worn-out state, retrieved from an American Kabbadi Wallah)  through one of my childhood friend of Indian origin, Dr Pranav Mishra, who is now practising physician with his own private hospital in the US. 

However, the said copy couldn't reach my New Delhi home address by post as it was apparently seized by the authorities in transit overseas. There was no official reply but it seemed that either the postal or some other authorities had confiscated it before it could be despatched off from their soil. So much for the ban.

Anyway, as the internet began proliferating in the country, and some online copies of the book began to appear on some online sites, and Dr Varma did succeed in translating this novel.

The novel tells the world that finance capitalism, the advanced form of Capitalism, is such a complicated situation in the United States of America that the governance in general, and its presidential election in particular, can't bring in changes in it whatever be the common world perceptions of its democratic or republican contestants.

Therefore, the expectation of democracy-loving people of the world from the new Democrat President Joe Biden, elected in place of the Republican  Donald Trump, to check Zionist Isreal military continuing carpet bombing of Palestine areas in Gaza to annex whatever territory is left beyond its control was bound to prove a big blunder.

The Atlanta - based American media giant Cable News Network ( CNN ) has confirmed it by a circulated news report of  Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu this morning. The report gives details of the almost unchangeable system of the US politico-legal administration.

The US  Supreme Court 

The Supreme Court, armed with its new conservative majority, has agreed to hear a major case next term that poses a major challenge to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which enshrined a woman’s constitutional right to pursue an abortion. The fight between groups that style themselves pro-choice and pro-life over abortion is one of the most divisive social, religious and ideological issues and helps define the split between liberals and conservatives in US life.

The new case in question concerns a Mississippi law outlawing terminations after 15 weeks with very few exceptions. According to Roe, a woman has the right to seek abortions until the point when a fetus becomes viable, usually around the 24th week of pregnancy. 

If the court backs the new Mississippi law, women would have far less time to get abortions than they do now and it would invite a flurry of even more restrictive state laws that could outlaw the practise entirely. The nine justices of the Supreme Court are likely to deliver their decision in summer 2022, in the middle of what is sure to be a bitter and tense campaign for midterm congressional elections that November.

That the Supreme Court is hearing the case at all is the result of a long struggle by conservative groups to remake the federal judiciary that culminated in former President Donald Trump’s reshaping of the Supreme Court in one single term. The top bench now has a 6-3 conservative majority, an encouraging ratio for supporters of the Mississippi law.

This situation is the chief legacy achievement of Mitch McConnell, the leader of Republicans in the Senate, whose constitutionally questionable manoeuvrings may have deprived Democratic presidents of two nominees. The looming debate over abortion is just one of the massively consequential policy areas expected to come before the court soon that could define US life, including new conservative bids to curtail gun control and voting access.

Such cases will highlight the looming culture clashes of the coming decades between a Supreme Court dominated by right-wing and religious judges and younger, secular and socially liberal Americans.

The Gaza Conflict 

The United Nations has failed to check the deadly ongoing Israeli airstrikes in Palestinian areas largely because of the US pro-Israel stand. The UN, backed by the US had played a major role in establishing Israel as a state about 7 decades ago. Palestinians refer to the recent developments as the Nakba( catastrophe) but the UN-backed by the US isn't coming forward to stop it through a ceasefire. The UN’s powerful 15-nation Security Council is charged with preserving international peace and security. 

Humanitarian agencies and NGOs have pleaded for the council to do something. A statement submitted by Norway and backed by other countries appeals for de-escalation infighting. But the United States keeps using its veto power to block any formal reaction by the council, saying it prefers to use its own diplomatic powers to calm things down.  

“The United States has been working tirelessly through diplomatic channels to try to bring an end to this conflict,” US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield has told the council. The US is one of just five countries that have veto power over any action they don’t like in the council.

Pretentious concerns of Prez Biden 

President Biden voiced pretentious support for a ceasefire on Monday. During a telephone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden "expressed his support for a ceasefire and discussed US engagement with Egypt and other partners towards that end," a White House description of the call read. It was the first time the White House officially made mention of a ceasefire to contain the situation. However, the US has stopped short of a demand for a cessation of violence. This is the US system at work as depicted in the novel, The Americans: A Middle Western.