Indian and French Writers Speak On Problems Facing Their Nations

Writers from India and France cast a revealing light on their countries by going so far as to "disinflate their national egos," as one of them expressed it, at the third open meeting of the Harvard International Seminar last night.

The topics of "France's Ambiguities" and "India's Dilemma" set the tone for a critical evaluation of the two nations.

Two of the French speakers, Roland Delcour, foreign editor of Le Monde, and Lionel Assouad, a publisher, identified themselves as opponents to their government's policy of holding on to Algeria as a French colony.

But both speakers maintained that there is no easy solution to France's problems, Delcourt on economic grounds and Assouad on the grounds of the sizeable European minority in Algeria.

Assouad proposed Algerian self-government within a French union, as the best solution, but said he did not know whether or not Gen. DeGaulle favored complete union of France and Algeria. "De Gaulle came to power like a sphinx, not saying what his intentions were," Assouad quipped, "and perhaps without any intentions at all."

The third French speaker, Yves Bennefoy, a poet, spoke of the world-wide problem of culture as opposed to art.

The two Indian speakers, Miss M. A. Devaki, research associate of the Indian Cooperative Union, and Tiruvenkat Seshadri, senior sub-editor of the Times of India, agreed that India's domestic and foreign dilemmas stem from the role of international leadership it has had to assume since the war.