SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1957. Political Questions in India

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28322, 6 July 1957, Page 10

SATURDAY, JULY 6, 1957. Political Questions in India

Had the Congress Party received a serious setback at the recent General Election in India, the subsequent anxious questioning of the party’s future would have appeared a logical and necessary process of self-examination. But the Congress Party did well at the election—astonishingly well when it is remembered the party has dominated Indian politics for 40 years and has governed independent India for the last 10 years. Out of 488 seats in the House of the People, the Congress Party secured 365, giving it a handsome absolute majority. Of the 2901 seats in the State assemblies, Congress won 1888. The election revealed some weak spots. Congress lost Kerala to the Communists; but the party is the second largest in the assembly, where the Communists enjoy a majority only with the help of some Independent members. Congress was disappointed also in Orissa, where a swing to the Right contradicted any conclusions that might be drawn from the swing to the Left in Kerala. In West Bengal the party lost some support but remained in power, though with a stronger opposition. But these setbacks do little to upset a general impression that Congress emerged from the General Election largely unshaken. Why, then, the present anxiety in the Congress Party? The main reason seems to be appreciation that the five years before the next General Election must take place will be crucial in the development of India’s affairs. These years will see the success or failure of India’s second five-year plan. The first plan successfully achieved its primary object, which was to ease the food situation. The second plan is chiefly a vast programme of development in the field of heavy industry. Already there are many voices saying that a plan with such strong emphasis on heavy industries may well prove to be a grave political mistake, in addition to being a dubious economic proposition. The recent Budget of the Finance Minister, Mr Krishnamachari, showed that the second five-year plan will call for heavy sacrifices from Indians. Recent approaches to the international loan markets have drawn attention to the enormous gap between India’s desire to import capital goods and its capacity to pay for them. The plan may have to be scaled down in important respects; and it is by no means certain that the consequent loss of prestige would be less damaging politically to the Government and the Congress Party than the enforced austerity which alone could enable its substantial completion.

Rather surprisingly (to observers in the outside world) a good deal of attention is being given to the position of Mr Nehru. There are even suggestions that orthodox forces in

the Congress Party—generally acknowledged to be led by the Home Minister, Pandit Pant—are seeking to dislodge Mr Nehru, urging that he should retire from the Prime Ministership to revitalise his party, as U Nu did in Burma. Some outside observers see reason in this argument. While paying tribute to Mr Nehru’s great stature and to his services to India and Asia, the “ Manchester Guardian ” said that in the last six months there have been signs, few but disturbing, that Mr Nehru’s judgment is a little less sure than it used to be. The evidence, the “ Manchester Guardian ” says, causes anxiety because it is cumulative; on three issues, especially, he has shown insensitiveness of touch. A year ago he vacillated upon the plans for reorganisation of the State boundaries in India, and the obvious uncertainty of the Central Government caused the Bombay riots. In November he misjudged Hungary. In the last few months he has pursued over Kashmir a course which has saddened many of those who placed their hopes in his long sight or his political morality. The New Delhi correspondent of the “Round Table” is not one of the political observers who suggest the retirement of Mr Nehru from the Prime Ministership; but he, also, has misgivings about Mr Nehru’s leadership. Writing in the latest (June, 1957) issue of the “Round Table”, the correspondent says that after four months abroad he returned to India disturbed, in particular, about the Indian national character, in which he sees something that is apparently “ incurably “feeble”. He agrees with those who say that great changes have taken place in India since independence—Mr Nehru is fond of speaking of a “ silent revolu- “ tion ”. But the correspondent does not agree that the changes have been revolutionary. Relating all this to the position of Mr Nehru, the correspondent says that it is not a serious complaint against Mr Nehru that he has not in his nine years as Prime Minister increased the country’s food or steel production by so many thousands of tons. Posterity, the correspondent believes, may hold his failure to have been even more fundamental; it may say that he failed to vitalise the people, to remqve his country’s centuries-old inertia, and to give it a purpose worth working for. Mr Nehru will certainly not be influenced by these suggestions about his political future unless he himself becomes convinced that he can serve his country more effectively in another office. Mr Nehru is now 68. He may yet come to believe that he has it in him to revitalise the Congress Party, and through it, India, and that this would fittingly crown his great career.