The Press TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1974, Mrs Gandhi's sea of troubles

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33451, 5 February 1974, Page 12

The Press TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1974, Mrs Gandhi's sea of troubles

Mrs Gandhi’s Government in India is facing a sea of troubles, political and economic, which threatens to overwhelm the ruling Congress Party before this year is far advanced. On the economic side, the shortage of food, brought about by crop failures, mismanagement and corruption, continues to cause widespread rioting. In Gujarat, where rioting has been ruthlessly checked—but not suppressed—by troops apparently under orders to shoot to kill if necessary', the food shops for weeks past have been more often empty than stocked. The state has been getting about a quarter of its needs in food grains, in spite of record yields. Mrs Gandhi had claimed that the worst of the economic crisis would be over this year, with the availability of more wheat and rice and a generally satisfactory yield of oil-seeds, cotton, jute and other farm products. In many states political mismanagement has ended hopes for a more stable situation. The “ fair price ” shops, where the Government sets price levels, remain empty because farmers withhold their crops, in protest against the Government’s levy system, requiring them to hand over a fixed proportion of their harvest. This lifts the level of market prices and lengthens the queues at the ration shops. From there it is a short step to rioting and tepressive action which the Government eeems powerless to avoid. The loss of effective political control was illustrated a week or two ago when state Food Ministers were summoned to Delhi, to be admonished for incompetent administration. Two states did not even attend the conference; nor, as the “Times of “India” pointed out, did they offer a word of explanation or regret. Mrs Gandhi’s troubles do not all derive from the food situation. University students and teachers in many parts of India have been making strike protests about conditions. In Delhi itself nurses and junior doctors have been striking to force salary improvement Worker strikes have virtually paralysed the jute industry. In Mrs Gandhi’s home state, Uttar Pradesh, communal rioting, involving Hindus and Moslems, has caused deaths and widespread looting and burning. The use of troops in Gujarat and the placing of the capital, Ahmedabad, under curfew, lend colour to charges that the Government has panicked; the authority of the Congress is being steadily eroded by internal quarrels. The 1972 election, after the crushing of Pakistan, raised Mrs Gandhi’s prestige to a peak; now she has cause to fear the outcome of the elections due in four states and the union territory of Pondicherry, involving a quarter of the Indian electorate. Four state byelections have already gone against the Congress, indicating a deep-seated resentment of the Government’s failures, notably in the distribution and priding of food. The state elections, at the end of February, may well give an indication of what the judgment of the voters will be in 1976, the year of the next general election. Mrs Gandhi, attempting to reassert her authority within the Congress, has just marie three more appointments to her Council of Ministers, which now has a strength of 60, including 19 of Cabinet rank. She professes confidence that Congress will close its ranks for the pending state elections. But she must be uneasily aware that the Opposition parties, risking some strange alliances, will be making a concerted attack at the lf the state elections continue to reflect anti-Government feeling, Mrs Gandhi may be forced to take* even sterner measures to deal with the countries ills.